A/N: This is my first dive into the famous Harry Potter fanfiction. And only my second story overall. I hope you all enjoy the first chapter. Not much action but that will come in the next few chapters before heading off to Hogwarts to start Harry's sixth year. Don't forget to review.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters that are used in this story.

Chapter 1: Lord Potter

Harry Potter sat in the smallest bedroom in Number 4 Privet Drive brooding. He had been like this for the last two weeks since returning from Hogwarts. If one were to look at him, one would think that he was dead, only warm. He was pale, and getting frightening thin, though no more thin than was normal for the summer. He had bags under his eyes and barely moved from his bed, only getting up to use the loo or to get a bite to eat when he thought he could hold it down.

He had not heard from neither Ron or Hermione in the past two weeks, which was starting to anger him. Harry thought that his friends were trying to stay away from him, though he could hardly blame them for that. Everyone that got close to him seemed to die. His parents, Cedric, and then Sirius, who would be next. Mr. Weasley had nearly died from a venomous bite from Nagini while guarding the Department of Mysteries and Ginny had nearly died in his second year, and not to mention all the times that himself, Ron, and Hermione had nearly died in all of their adventures. So why would anyone want to get close to him.

He could hardly sleep, every time he closed his eyes, he saw Sirius falling through the veil with that smile on his face as if he was happy to be leaving the world. Or it would be the scene of the graveyard, where he would watch Cedric die, and then the resurrection of the Dark Lord, Voldemort. Then, if it was neither of those, it would be of the Chamber, where he would be too late to save Ginny, and see her dead body on the floor of the chamber floor.

He continued to lay on his bed throughout most of the afternoon until he heard a clicking sound coming from the window area. He sat up slowly, looking in the direction of the noise, to find Ron's owl, Pig, waiting for him. He walked over to the window and let the excitable owl in, which on doing so, the owl rocketed into the room and ran headlong into the closet door. Harry stood there for a moment before busting out a rusty chuckle, which soon turned into a flow blown laugh as his eyes twinkled with mirth for the first time since the events at the Ministry.

He walked over to where the dazed owl sat, and picked him up and walked over to the desk and, after removing the letter from Pig, sat it down on one side of the desk as he sat back down on the bed staring at the letter. The handwriting on the envelope was foreign to him, so he knew that it was not Ron, so that left only one person. Ginny. He had forgotten all about the fiery redhead that had snapped him out of his prat-like state back in December at St. Mungo's. He had always thought of her as "Ron's little sister", but since then, he had started to see her for herself and not just his best mate's sister. He had to admit that she was beautiful, more so than Cho even. He scowled at that thought, thinking how terrible things had gotten with the Ravenclaw seeker.

Setting those thoughts aside he returned to the letter, and finally ripping the seal of the envelope and pulling out the letter, and unrolled it to read it in length.

Dear Harry,

Hi Harry. Hope everything is going well with those Muggle relatives of yours. I hope that they are treating you well, although you may be doing a number on yourself at the moment. And don't seem so surprised, because I know you better than you think I do. You think it is your fault that Sirius is dead, and that if you had not believed in the vision that he would still be here today. But I am here to tell you that it is not your fault, Harry! It is Voldemort's, and if you want the real person to blame, blame Bellatrix, not you. She is the one that sent him through the Veil, not you.

And in case you don't believe me, I will give you some advise that helped me get over the events that occurred during my first year. It is that people much older and wiser have been tricked by Voldemort. You have to remember that Harry. He tricked you, how were you to know that the vision was a fake, after you saved Dad back before Christmas. And no one that I have talked to blames you for what happened, they are all just happy that you and the other five of us were not too badly injured. We are at war Harry, people who are close to us are going to die! There is nothing you can do about that. It may hurt now, but it will get easier after a while.

Anyway, I hope that after you read this that you will finally stop blaming yourself and start treating your body well, and start sleeping because you have probably not slept for more than a few hours since getting back. And I overheard Dumbledore talking to Mum and Dad and he said that you should be able to come over a couple of weeks before your birthday. Well, I better finish this up, Mum's calling us for dinner. Write back soon, Harry.

Love,

Ginny

Harry sat in shock for a few minutes, unsure of how to divulge all the information in Ginny's letter. She is good, Harry thought to himself absently. Ginny did bring up a good point, that he was not the first person to be tricked by the Dark Lord. She would know all about Tom from her past with the diary. And he was more surprised by how correct she had been in her analysis of him. He was blaming himself for Sirius's death, but after reading her letter, found no reason to do so, and with that thought, he felt a giant weight lift from his shoulders. Then suddenly his emotional wall that he had built for the last few weeks toppled and he cried for his godfather, for being taken from him when Harry needed him most. He cried for his parents, for Cedric, for everything that had gone wrong in the past fifteen, nearly sixteen years of his life. Nearly an hour later, his tears finally stopped and for the first time in weeks, Harry Potter fell into a dreamless sleep.

He awoke around midday the next day and found himself getting extremely hungry, so with the thought of food on his mind he trekked down to the kitchen to find that the house was empty. On further inspection, it seemed that the Dursleys had left for the day, which meant that Harry could scrounge through the refrigerator without any regrets. After a rather hefty meal, Harry returned upstairs and picked up the letter from Ginny and sat down and read it quickly. After doing this, he got some parchment and a quill from a drawer and decided on writing back to her.

It took him nearly an hour to finish the letter, but once he was done, he rolled up the full roll of parchment and stuck it into an envelope and finished it by writing, Ginny, on the front of the envelope. The letter had started out as just a letter thanking her for helping him to pull out of his depression, but then he had ended up telling her more, talking about how it felt to see him go through the veil, and the events that took place in the Atrium. The attempted Unforgivable he had tried to use on Bellatrix and then the duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort, and then Voldemort possessing him for the first time. He had described the feeling as just wanting to die, he told her how he truly was hoping that the Headmaster would end the pain, but he had somehow remembered his friends at the opportune moment and shoved Voldemort from his body.

He also described how he had been basically starving himself and hardly getting any sleep at night. He knew he was probably going to get chewed out by her when he got to the Burrow, but he could not help the sad smile that appeared on his face when he thought of how fiery she could be at times.

Walking over to Hedwig's cage, he opened the door and held out his forearm for her to jump onto. "Hey Hedwig, would you mind taking this to Ginny," he said, and then added. "Make sure she is alone, so you may want to fly to her bedroom." Hedwig nipped his ear affectionately, confirming the request and held her leg out for Harry to attach his letter to. "Thanks girl." He walked over to the window and opened it and let her fly out into the sky.

After doing this, he went to the loo to shower and change clothes. He returned to his bedroom and shut the door. He laid down on his bed and thought of what to do for the rest of the summer. He decided that he would start to get up early and run in the morning around Privet Drive and the park that was located nearby. He also figured he could do some push-ups and sit-ups as well. It would help in his dueling abilities as well as dodging, and it would help to have some endurance for the battles and for Quidditch matches as well. He also decided that he would continue the D.A., he decided that even with a competent Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, they could at least continue working on the Patronus charm that he had started teaching before the class got interrupted by Umbridge and the Inquisitorial Squad. He could also teach them a few things, like dodging, that would help protect them from the Unforgivables and other spells that could break through the Protego shield. He also decided, that once at Hogwarts, he would use the Room of Requirement as his training room, which would allow him to work on his dodging as well as his casting speed and accuracy.

With all of this going through his mind for the next few hours he went downstairs to the kitchen and ate dinner in the silence of the living room and then returned to his room where he laid in bed and within a few minutes was out like a light.

Over the next couple of weeks, Harry got into the routine of waking up at 6:45am and jogging around Privet Drive. It was hard at first, but after the first few days, his speed increased, as well as his distance. He also did push-ups and sit-ups in his room. That too started off slowly, but he soon found his rhythm and was doing at least 150 before quitting.

He also received more owls from Ginny, where she would talk about the events around the Burrow and then she would ask questions about his childhood or about anything that seemed to come to her mind at times. Harry was a little weary at first to give the information to her, but instead decided to trust and he delved into his past, telling her about all the physical and emotional abuse, about how he spent nearly 11 years living in a cupboard underneath the stairs of the house, and the lack of food that he would always receive at meals.

One day, about two weeks before his birthday, he received an owl from Hogwarts. He knew that it would bear his O.W.L. results from the previous year, and to be honest, he had nearly forgotten about getting the letter that would see if he would continue his dream of being an Auror or not. With that thought, he opened the letter and pulled out his scores sheet.

Ordinary Wizarding Level Results

Pass Grades / Fail Grades

Outstanding (O) / Poor (P)

Exceeds Expectations (E) / Dreadful (D)

Acceptable (A) / Troll (T)

Harry James Potter has received the following grades:

Astronomy A

Care of Magical Creatures O

Charms E

Defense Against the Dark Arts O*

Divination P

Herbology E

History of Magic D

Potions O

Transfiguration E

*: Top of the class in this subject

Harry stared at the parchment in shock, he had received seven OWLs, three Outstanding grades, and one of those was in Potions! And the shock of being the top of his year in DADA was not really that much of a shock to him if he thought about it. After looking through the grades, he had to select the NEWT classes that he was going to take for next year. After thinking for a moment, he went with Care for Magical Creatures, DADA, Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, and Herbology.

As he sent the owl back to Hogwarts, he looked over his score sheet one last time thinking of the upcoming year, and just how hard it was going to be. He only hoped that the school year would go well, and that Voldemort would stay dormant for some time before he launched an attack against him or the school itself. With these thoughts, he set the parchment back into the envelope and placed the envelope into his trunk.

He continued to do his exercises in the morning and would spend most of his afternoon working on his summer schoolwork that needed to be completed in the courses that he was taking for the upcoming school year. This routine continued for the rest of his stay at Privet Drive. It wasn't until the day before he was going to be leaving for the Burrow, and just five days until his birthday, that something hampered this routine.

He had gotten up at 6am like normal for his run, and ran for nearly two hours before returning home to shower and to fix breakfast for his guardians. Once he had finished this, he returned to his room where he was about to continue his workouts when he saw an owl sitting on the windowsill. He walked over to it and gave it a few owl treats while removing the letter from its leg. The seal was one that took him by surprise. It was from Gringotts Wizarding Bank in London. He wondered what in the world the goblins wanted, so he decided to open the letter up and see.

Dear Mr. Potter,

It has come to our attention that Sirius Black died the night of the attack in the Department of Mysteries. We here at Gringotts are sorry for the loss of your godfather and hope that all is well currently. This letter is to address that Lord Black had refreshed his will once he was able to about a year ago. In the will in question, Lord Black named you as his one and only Heir to the Black Family.

As a result of this, you are the Head of the Black Family, and are seen in the eyes of Gringotts, regardless of age, as an adult, as well as the Ministry. In other terms, you have been emancipated, and now have access to your inheritance and the Potter's will. As the only known Potter left in Britain, you are also the Head of the Potter Family.

We would like to meet with you in person to go over the assets held in both Black and Potter vaults. Please visit the bank as soon as possible in order to have enough time to go over everything that needs to be done.

Thank you for your time, we await your meeting Lord Potter

Best Regards,

Griphook

Harry read the letter over multiple times before he set the parchment on his desk. He ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up even more. He wondered how many more secrets his Headmaster held. First, he withheld the prophecy for some time, and now he just now finds out about his inheritance left by his parents. He wondered what all his parents had left him, and what Sirius's family's vault held. He would have to talk to Mr. Weasley to see if he could take him to Gringotts before returning to the Burrow tomorrow.

He wrote a note back to Griphook, saying that he would try to get there tomorrow if it were possible. And sent the bank's owl back on its way. The rest of the day flew by as he thought about tomorrow, and if he would be able to get closer to his parents and his godfather a little better. As he lay in bed that night, he just hoped that whatever happened, that he would be able to handle the emotions that the following day might throw at him.