Prologue:

The aim of this story is to eventually become a set of three stories. They are all based around Harry and all the events of HP book 1-6 remain the same except for a few character changes. Sirius, Lily and James never died and Harry lives with the 3 of them and his 2 older brothers Andy and J at Potter Manor. I have read many stories where Harry has younger siblings but I love the relationship between Charlie and Bill and Ginny and wanted to try and recreate that for Harry.

Andy is 29 and works as an auror with James who is Head of the Auror Department. He is engaged to Kat (Katarina), a dark haired Hispanic liaison between the Ministry and foreign Ministry's in Spain, Portugal and France.

J is 27 and works as a Healer like his long term partner Matt. J flew through Healer training with flying colours and is head of a diagnostic team and also has a muggle medicine degree. Matt works in paediatrics.

Harry and Ginny never broke up at the end of HBP but Dumbledore was still killed. Ron and Hermione professed their pent up feeling for each other soon after Harry and Ginny and are now a couple.

For the purposes of reducing confusion, in this story the Deathly hallows won't exist. Too much of a headache trying to keep tracking of who has them all! Horcruxes do exist and the Order knows about them.

This story begins several months after the end of HBP. For ease of timings, I am assuming that school finished early after Dumbledore's death. Therefore this story begins around July before Harry's 7th year begins.

I know this might be confusing and that I have changed a lot but isn't that the whole point of fan fiction, to write things how you would have liked them to happen so that it was I'm trying. I know it might not be what a lot of people like but I have tried to incorporate all the best bits of stories I have read and my own ideas as well.

As someone very expertly put; Harry Potter is J K Rowling's toys, we just play with.

I hope you enjoy the following and try and be nice as this is my first fanfic.

Thanks J

Chapter 1:

Andy's POV

3 months

91 days

2184 hours

131040 minutes.

It was how long his chair had sat empty at the dining table.

It was how long he had listened to his mother cry herself to sleep to the whispered words of comfort from his father.

It was how long he had automatically put out the marmalade at breakfast each morning before realising that there was no-one there to eat it, as his Mum only bought it for her youngest son.

It was how long he hadn't let go of Kat's hand, afraid that if he did she might disappear too.

It was how long he saw his brother hold Matt's hand with similar thoughts for his nearly brother.

This was the length of time it had been since Harry had been taken.

It was a week after they had all returned tear stained from Hogwarts. Dumbledore's funeral had cut the school year short for everybody and they were all sent home in an attempt to regain some normality to their summers'. Over that short space of time Andy and J watched as their little brother built his life back together after losing one of the most important men in his life.

That painfully long week didn't see Harry, Ginny, Hermione and Ron ever far apart. They could often be seen with the girls in their guys' arms, tears tracking all of their faces and offering words of support that only the four of them could lend each other. And slowly they began to come back to life.

Andy was amazed at the strength his little brother showed, but wasn't surprised based on the horrors of Harry's first 6 years at Hogwarts. He had faced a 3 headed dog, Quirell, acramantula, a basilisk, Lucius Malfoy, dementors, werewolf Remus, a Hungarian horntail, mer-people, Umbridge, death eaters, Sirius nearly dying in front of him, being possessed, Draco Malfoy, Snape, Inferi, Dumbledore's and Dobby's death, around 10 attempts on his life and 6 encounters with Voldemort all whilst battling raging teenage hormones. It was hardly a childhood at all, though Andy, his Mum, Dad and J had all tried to give him every childhood experience but none of them could deny that during that week he had become a man.

On Sunday, the whole family was over at the Manor for Sunday brunch as was tradition; all the Weasleys (minus Charlie) plus Fleur and Hermione, Remus and Tonks, Sirius and all the Potters plus their other halves. Andy remembered the arguments between the twins and Molly Weasley as they and Sirius charmed all the boiled eggs to leap out of their serving bowl and start singing a 4 part acapella version of 'How do you like your eggs in the morning?'

This had everyone falling of theirs chairs with laughter as Fred, George and Sirius all took bows and Mrs Weasley began to scold the twins. It was at this point when Sirius had sheepishly sat down and attempted to hide his beetroot face from Mrs Weasley's wrath as the twins were given all the blame for the rather ingenious prank.

After everything had calmed down Lily had asked Harry to go and fetch the teapot from the kitchen which he had done begrudgingly as it meant leaving Ginny's side, Andy remembered with a slight smile.

The next thing he knew there was a loud pop followed by the unmistakable smash of china hitting a stone floor. The 2 families had burst into the kitchen wands drawn to see a broken teapot and a flash of Harry's unruly black hair thrown over the shoulder of a black hooded figure before both disappeared with a pop leaving the smashed remains of the teapot, a luke-warm brown puddle and silence.

Everything seemed to slow down to a stop and move impossibly quickly at the same time. Order members flitted in and out of the house moving there wands over every inch of the kitchen and trying to understand where Harry had been taken. His mother had sat down at the kitchen table and wept as J stared around the room in a mixture of confusion and disbelief.

And now it was 3 months later.

And the marmalade still sat in the cupboard.

Things had followed in a similar pattern. Order members were constantly flooing in and out of the house, so much so that the kitchen was taking on an eerie green hue. James, Sirius and Mr Weasley only returned to their homes once everyone else was asleep in bed and left again before they had begun to stir. Lily had kept a brave face, the result of having such a strong auror for a husband and not wanting to seem weak, but nearly every night she could be found in the doorway to Harry's room staring around at the maroon walls. Andy and Kat and J and Matt all moved back into the boys' childhood bedrooms, Andy and Kat leaving their jobs in El Ministerio de Magia and apartment in Barcelona and J and Matt taking advantage of their holiday time from St Mungo's to leave their terraced house in Kent for Potter manor. This reunion of the Potters should have brought laughter and petty arguments to the house, and Lily would moan at her 3 boys when they would play increasingly more ridiculous pranks on each other seeking the perfect revenge.

But there were no arguments. No laughter. And no hours of the boys holing themselves in their rooms while they concocted the most ingenious plans. And then one day, 3 months after Harry disappeared, things changed.

The dining room was a mirror image of how it had been for the first time since that dark night. But it was like an inverted reflection. Instead of laughter a cold silence filled the room, broken only by quiet conversations between family members. Instead of piles of steaming food, only clasped hands lay on the table and instead of an animated smile, Ginny's face was empty of emotion and eyes haunted as she stared at the empty chair beside her.

The tension in the room was broken as the three people they had all been waiting for entered in a flash of emerald flames.

James looked around the room as Remus and Sirius stepped next to him and he said 3 words that filled Andy's heart with equal measures of joy and fear.

'Malfoy Manor. Now.'

Chapter 1

The group of 5 darkly clad men crawled out of the grate that served as their entrance to the supposedly impregnable Malfoy Manor. They had known from the off that apparition wouldn't have been an option to them as anti-apparition wards would have been placed across the house and they didn't have a house elf, as Harry's captors had. James had an unnerving feeling that the wards served more as a method of encaging the residents of the house rather than as a protection from unwanted visitors. After all, he thought pulling himself to his feet; Voldemort is hardly likely to feel the need for protection.

Sirius dropped several nearby bricks under the grate keeping the entrance to the sewer pipes, that they had just climbed out of, open.

'However this turns out, I have a feeling we might need a quick exit,' he said in response to the puzzled looks he was getting from Ron and Andy.

'Good thinking,' replied Andy while Ron simply nodded in agreement.

James, Remus, Sirius, Andy and Ron looked around at the room they had climbed into. It was small with a heavy wooden door facing them and a few simple splintering benches lining the other 3 walls. James led the group out of the door and they found themselves in a long corridor. Like the small chamber they had just left, the floors and walls consisted of smooth grey stone bricks. Lining the long corridor were a dozen other wooden doors all with similar rooms beyond, they discovered, though in some the benches were exchanged in favour of small canvas cots and several were completely bare save for a set of iron handcuffs chained to the wall.

'I think we're in the dungeons,' whispered James to Remus who stood at his shoulder looking at the handcuffs dangling from the wall.

Sirius smirked in response, 'Trust Malfoy to have a dungeon in the bottom of his house. Most people have a basement full of junk, or a wine cellar now that would be classy.'

At this typically Sirius piece of randomness Ron cracked a small smile that disappeared quickly when the severity of the situation seeped back into him like the penetrating cold of the surrounding stone walls.

'Wait, this is good though,' Andy said turning to his Father, his eyed lighting up. 'Isn't it Dad?'

'It is indeed son. If Harry is here, then the logical place for them to keep him would be in the dungeons,' resolving the confused looks of the other 3. 'This could work.'

With that thought the determination in the group rose visibly as they all stood straighter and exchanged looks filled with hope. They separated into 2 groups as per the plan they had made before leaving Potter manor. James, Remus and Sirius took the lead, in one group, as they began to make their way down the corridor with Andy and Ron following closely behind them as the second group. The plan was that if they did find Harry then James, Sirius and Remus would stand as guards while Andy and Ron would grab Harry and run, hopefully before the situation became too unbalanced in numbers for the 3 marauders to cope with.

They slowly reached the end of the corridor and found 2 pathways open to them. The left opened up into a large cavernous room with a set of ascending worn stone steps at the far end. Assuming that that was the entrance to the rest of the Manor the group took the other path, following the corridor straight on. The passageway began to slope downwards ever so slightly and the icy temperature of the dungeon seemed to drop by 10 degrees if that was even possible.

'Did anyone else notice it suddenly got a hell of a lot colder in here?' Sirius asked not really anticipating an answer when Remus and James said one word in perfect unison that normally would have had him cracking jokes about the pair being made for each other and were they going to start finishing each other's sentences' now. However that one word instead banished all humour from his mind as he felt his bones turn to ice.

'Dementors.'

Harry's POV

Harry had no idea how long he had been here. In his cage.

He had attempted to keep track of the days in the beginning. He based it on the one meal of stale bread and water he was given a day. But as the methods of torture had become more imaginative, and with that imagination more pain, he found all logical thought abandoning his mind. All he was left with was the pain and the gradually growing piece of hope that eventually the death eaters would get bored with him and finish him off. He hoped... no, he prayed for his death.

He learnt quickly never to underestimate these seemingly dense dark followers. If he was being whipped they would demand he stayed silent or else. The first time, he was consumed with the pain and let a cry. He never did it again.

They could be surprisingly thorough with punishment.

It was after this incident that Harry's mind gave a last ditch attempt at self preservation and he threw Harry into unconsciousness. What a mistake.

The one thing he would never succumb to was the pull of his eyelids. Never again would he close his eyes for fear of once again experiencing the tormenting nightmare charm that passed into him as his magic passed out the conductor to support the anti-apparation charm. How ironic that Harry was providing the power for his prison, he was imprisoning himself. If he fell asleep then the charm would force him through nightmares of his greatest fears including his family abandoning him and throwing him out. It was their way of controlling his whole life, including his dreams, leaving him no way of escape. No freedom.

He looked with a hint of amusement at the handcuffs around his wrists, chaining him to his cage. He hardly knew why they bothered with them; he was so weak he could barely lift his head. He barely even flinched anymore as they taunted him from the darkness surrounding the cage. His cage.