Hello, this is my first ever fan fiction all though I have read quite a few from this site and others I have had some inspiration from stories I have read and any similarities between this and other stories are purely coincidental. I hope that people like it. Please read and review as comments will be appreciated as I want to know what I have done well and what I haven't so that I am able to improve on them.

Summary:
This story is set after Harry's 5th year at Hogwarts not long after Sirius's death after he returns to the Dursley's. He decides to prepare for the war with Voldemort when he gets a letter asking for his presence at Sirius's will reading, as well as to inform him about a number of things concerning him. When he attends the reading he learns things that change the very foundations of his life and set him on a different path than the one that Dumbledore wants him on. As he heads down this new path he continues to learn things that strengthen his new views.

Bashing: Dumbledore, Weasleys, Hermione

Manipulative: Dumbledore

Obsessive: Ginny

(Psychic Speech)

[Beast speech]

=Parseltongue=

+Gobbledegook+

Currency conversion: 1 Galleon = £7.925

Chapter 1 - The Letter

_16th June_

Since Harry had returned to the Dursley's he had spent most of that time reading his school books and finishing his homework, the rest was spent doing the chores that the Dursley's had given him, which this year were of far greater number than any other he could remember. This was due mainly to the fact that the 'Order of the Burnt Turkey' - as Harry had taken to calling them, had threatened his relatives, leading the Dursley's to take their anger out on him by assigning him extra chores. He managed to get through the summer by thinking about Hogwarts.

When Harry had started school at Hogwarts, he respected most of the teachers as they treated everyone fairly and were not biased against him. He came to see Dumbledore as a grandfatherly figure, as he would listen to Harry, always believing in him even when most of the school didn't.

The way Harry kept himself busy that summer allowed him to keep his mind from settling on the subject that was constantly at the edge of it - Sirius. He had started to dwell on his godfather's death at the end of the year, as he believed it was his fault that Sirius died, since Sirius went to the Department of Mysteries that day in order to save Harry. Knowing that Sirius wouldn't have wanted him to dwell on his passing, Harry instead decided to focus on preparing to fulfil the prophecy he heard just hours after Sirius' death. The prophecy told Harry what he had known all along - that he would be the one to kill Voldemort, or that Voldemort would kill him. To prepare himself he had started by reading all of his school books from Hogwarts over again whenever he had free time, something that very rarely occurred in Harry's life, although he made up for it with his quick reading skills. By the fourth day into his summer holiday, Harry was already onto his fifth year books, and would soon need something else to occupy his time and to help him prepare for the upcoming war against Voldemort.

Harry looked up at the clock. It was quarter past ten at night and the Dursley's had not long since gone to bed. He pushed his transfiguration book away from him and decided to send a letter requesting some new books from one of his friends or an Order member, as he knew it would be too dangerous for him to leave the safety of the Dursleys' to go to Diagon Alley. He decided on sending a letter to Remus. He started to write his letter:

Remus,

I am writing to you to request a few things. I have recently learned something that I am currently not at liberty to discuss as it has a high level of importance to the upcoming war and have decided that to maximise my chance of survival I need to prepare. I have nearly finished all of my school books, and since I am unable to go to Diagon Alley for some new ones, I was wondering if you could do so on my behalf. I would like as many defence books as possible, as well as advanced charms and transfiguration books.

Some beginner's guides to arithmacy, ancient runes, legilimens, occlumecy and animagi would also be appreciated, as I feel these skills may come in handy with my visions from Voldemort. I would also like to follow in my father's and Sirius' footsteps and become an animagus if possible, so could you possibly pick up the relevant ingredients for the animagus potion so I can see if I can become one?

I've enclosed a note to Gringotts that you can give them, allowing you to take some money out of my vault to pay for the goods.
I endeavour to hear from you soon and I hope that you are as good health as possible considering your 'furry little problem'.

Harry

Having finished writing his letter and the note to Gringotts, he rolled them up and tied them to Hedwig's leg.

"Hey girl, would it be possible for you to take these to Remus for me. Take your time, it's not like I'm flooded with letters is it?" He got up and opened the window. As Hedwig flew past him she gave him a quick bite on his ear to show him he was not on his own, as he always had Hedwig.

Shutting the window, Harry turned around slowly looking at the small room. It was packed but not how you would expect it to be for a teenager that was one of the most famous people in the wizarding world. You would expect it to be full of the latest items. Instead as he glanced round all he could see was broken things or previously broken things. He remembered when he first moved into this room from his previous one. This one was by far the bigger of the two at 6 feet wide by 10 feet long; just big enough to fit a bed and his broken old desk. He looked at a pile of rubbish and wondered why in the world the Dursley's had let Dudley keep it all.

"Probably just to spite me" he thought "considering they only gave me this room as Hogwarts knew I slept under the stairs. I doubt they actually want me to have any space." he had tried to make as much space as possible in the room by fixing things or by discreetly throwing small pieces of the junk away.

!FLASHBACK!

He slowly came down the stairs from his new room that he had been given the day before, walking into the kitchen he saw his aunt Petunia - a tall skinny women that reminded him so much of a horse, and his uncle who could only be described as a small whale when compared to Harry and his aunt. He sat at the table, clearing his throat to get their attention he started.

"Aunt Petunia, uncle Vernon, I was wondering if I could throw away the broken items in my new room as there is very little space in there at the moment." he knew as soon as he started to see Vernon turn his slowly reddening head that he had made a huge mistake in asking.

"WHY YOU UNGRATEFUL BOY, WE HAVE GIVEN YOU THAT ROOM OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF OUR HEARTS, AND YOU DECIDE TO INSULT US BY ASKING TO THROW AWAY OUR DEAR DUDDIKENS STUFF! YOU KNOW, I AM STARTING TO WONDER WHY WE GAVE YOU THAT ROOM WHEN OUR DUDLEY DESERVES AND NEEDS IT SO MUCH MORE!"
Harry found himself hurtling back up the stairs, fleeing from the wrath of his aunt and her frying pan.

! END FLASHBACK!

As he sat down at the desk he heard a tapping on the window behind him. Turning around he saw a small tawny owl pecking at the window, in its claws some rolled up parchment with the official Gringotts seal on them. Opening the window and taking the parchment from the owl he slowly opened it.

Mr Potter,

We are writing this letter to request your attendance at the will reading of Sirius Orion Black on June 24th at 1 pm. You presence is required as you are one of the main beneficiaries. If you do not reply or agree to come attend, you will lose all right of ownership to your items and they will be passed to a family member.

We anticipate your reply by the 20th at the latest with an explanation as to why you are not able to turn up if that is indeed the case. There are also some other matters that require your attention here at the Bank of Gringotts that could do with being sorted at the earliest convenience.

Griphook

Senior manager of the Potter accounts

Setting the letter down on his desk, Harry quickly penned out a reply letting Griphook know that he would be attending if a port key could be made for him due to his lack of available transport, along with a quick P.S. asking how he was doing. Quickly attaching the letter back onto the Gringotts owl and sending it back, he sat on the bed and allowed his mind to go over the past few weeks and what he thought might happen at the will reading. The next few days passed mostly the same with Harry doing his chores around the house while finishing reading his school books.

_19th June_

On the 19th though he received a letter and two parcels. A parcel from Remus that had all of his requested books and equipment as well as a few notable additions Remus must have picked out for him. There was also a note explaining his choices and how harry didn't owe him any money as Remus had taken over the role of godfather after Sirius had died. the second parcel contained a bag of galleons from his trust vault as well as a small stone with a note explaining that it was a port key set to take him to gringotts at 11am on the 24th June so they could discuss some things before the start of the will reading and to give him some time to go to diagon alley if he needs to. The letter however drew his attention as it was also about the will reading all though this time it was from Dumbledore.

Dear Harry

It has come to my attention in the past few days that Sirius's will is being read on the 24th at gringotts and unfortunately I am going to have to say that it is too dangerous for you to attend and so I will attend for you and pass on all relative Information afterwards. Remember I am only doing this for your safety. I have also arranged for you to spend the last Two weeks of your summer holiday at grimmauld place with the weasleys and unfortunately for your safety I have told Your friends not to send you anymore owls if they have already and request that you do not send any yourself as they Can be tracked I will send a letter closer to the end of the holidays via Fawkes as to how you will get to grimmauld place

I will see you back at school on September 1st

Albus Dumbledore

Supreme mugwump, headmaster of Hogwarts, leader of the order of the phoenix, head of the wizemagot, icw member

'that was strange' he thought to himself while filling Hedwig's water bowl up 'surely there would be enough security at gringotts to ensure my safety and either way I have to go now as I told griphook I would and I have the port key to get there and back with so I guess I will just see him there.' setting the letter to the side he picked up the first book out of the package from remus the beginner's guide to becoming an animagus. Slowly opening the book to the first page harry started to read.

WHAT IS AN ANIMAGUS: an animagus is a witch or wizard with the ability to turn into an animal at will. Not much is known on the relationship between wizard and animagus or except that it is very rare to get a magical species or multiple animagus with there only being one registered phoenix animagus in recorded history that person being Merlin.

HOW TO BECOME AN ANIMAGUS: there are a few ways to becoming an animagus but all start with finding out if you can by finding your form(s) if you have one this is achieved through the animagi revelio potion. This potion puts the drinker into a deep sleep like state where they will get a vision of their form(s) after the vision has stopped the drinker will slowly come round. If you are not able to become an animagus then the potion will not affect you. The directions to make the required potion are found on page 21. The second step in becoming an animagus is learning the transformation. This can be done in a multiple way. You can slowly meditate and slowly change parts of your body by focusing on it becoming the relevant part of your form until you are confident enough to do a full transformation where you will have to take control of that animal before its instincts take over. the second way is by far more painful as it requires the spell animagi change to be cast on the intended animagus this spell forces the body to change completely into that wizards form where they then take control the downside of this method is the transformation will take a couple of goes by that person to achieve the full transformation after the spell has been used. there are a number of other ways that can be used that are described later in this book but these two ways are the most commonly used.

Harry then turned to page 21 to find the directions to make the potion and stared the delicate process of brewing it knowing it took a minimum of 48 hours to make and luckily didn't need heating but just leaving it to stand for 24 hours after the last ingredient was added.

...48 hours later ...

Harry woke with a start looking around he saw the cauldron with his animagi revelio potion in it over in the corner. Standing up he made his way over and took a look. Seeing the bright blue colour he knew it was ready and took a beaker ful back to the bed with him where he made himself comfortable and took the potion

...6 hours later...

opening his eyes he saw his ceiling above him he looked over at the clock which read 4pm he had been in the visions for just over 6 hours cleaning up the remainder of the potion harry set to work on completing his chores so that he could continue reading his new books and get started on his animagus transformation.

the next few days flew by for harry with him completing his chores in the morning and spending the rest of the day reading his books then working on his transformation for 2 hours before heading to bed.

...24th June

slowly cracking his eyes open he turned off his alarm seeing it was 7:30 he set about making breakfast for the dursley's so he could be ready to head to gringotts at 11 am. Setting the breakfast on the table just as Vernon dursley came down the stairs allowed harry to quickly tell his uncle that he was going out for the day at 11 o'clock and that he didn't know when he would be back. After that was done he headed back to the room where he worked on his transformation by allowing his hands then feet to change until only his head was still human deciding that was as far as he wanted to go now harry decided to change back. Checking the time allowed him to see he had 10 minutes before the port key was set to go off.

...11:01 am 24th June...

as he stumbled forwards from his port key he knocked into a group of people stood at the back of the queue forcing these people to move forwards and stumble over each other one to the side of harry turned round and looked at who had caused them to nearly all fall over

"Harry? Is that you?"

A.N this was betad by a good friend who goes by the name of benny bunker so thanks to her hopefully all mistakes have been corrected

Also vote for who you would like harry to be paired with just put in the review their name and ill post the total updated votes with every chapter. I ask this as I like most pairings myself so don't know who to put him with. The person with the most votes will be paired with him if I can fit it into the story.