Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters, jinxes, termonolgy, etc mentioned in this fictional story, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter I- Holiday Troubles- The Unreadable Letter

It was three in the morning on July 24th. A boy, Harry Potter, fifteen years of age, with jet-black, untidy hair and green eyes, lay on his bed, eyes wide open. He had been thinking. So much had happened to his life in the past ten months. He had been attacked by Dementors, had been expelled from Hogwarts, only to later have the expulsion lifted, had spent the worst year ever with Dolores Unbridge, and to top it all off, had watched Sirius Black, his godfather, be evaporated into nothingness after falling behind the veil inside the Department of Mysteries, located in the Ministry of Magic.
He looked towards the large Owl cage, perched on the windowsill, wondering where Hedwig had been hunting tonight. She had been out for three nights now, Harry presumed, just having a ball while he sat, locked up, in the Dursley's miserable, antiseptic muggle house. He walked over to the cupboard in his room, and pulled it open. Inside of it was his broom, a Firebolt, an International Standard Broom. He was hoping it would distract him from the worries of what was to come, the fight against Voldemort, the Dark Lord himself, but it didn't.
It only reminded him of Sirius. The broom had been given to him as a Christmas present by Sirius Black during his third year at Hogwarts. That, the little two-way mirror Sirius had given him last year, and pictures of Sirius at his parents' wedding was all that remained of his godfather. He sat for a moment, staring at it, before slamming it shut and storming across his room to a writing desk, and sitting at it.
"I don't care what Dumbledore says" Harry thought to himself, "it's my fault Sirius is dead. If I had only listened.if I had only worked harder on my Occlumency so that Voldemort couldn't get into my head, Sirius would still be alive. But now he's gone." Harry began to let a few miniscule teardrops fall from his eyes on to the desk. He hastily opened the drawer of the desk, and removed a piece of parchment and a bottle of ink. He took a quill off the top of the desk, and flicked on the lamp. He began to write a letter as the tears trickled down his face.
Dear Sirius,
I know you'll never get this letter, but I have no one else to talk to. I am sick of this. I am sick of having to sit here, with these muggles treating me like vermin, when I should be out fighting Voldemort. I know Dumbledore said I had to stay here, but I just feel upset that I am being left in the dark right now. I just want to get on my broom and ride off into the sunset, back to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, and stay there, plotting the fall of Voldemort with the rest of the Order of the Phoenix. I just want to be able to listen to those blood-curdling screams of your mother and be reminded of the times when I still had you around. Instead, I'm stuck here, as though I have once again done something wrong.just like last year.
I know why I have to come back here, but it doesn't make things any better. I haven't been getting any letters, and I am sick of Dumbledore treating me like a damn child. I don't know what I should do, and so now.I'm asking you. I don't know why, and I don't care. Just let me get it all off my mind before I explode.
Harry Potter
Harry folded up the parchment neatly, and, after placing the quill back in its rightful place, he sat in position, awaiting the return of his snowy owl, Hedwig. He did not know why he was sending this letter; surely Sirius was dead and never coming back; Harry knew that.
Yet still, he had taken the time to write to his departed godfather, not knowing why. Did he perhaps still believe what he had been forced to stop believing down in the Department of Mysteries of the Ministry of Magic the night Sirius had been lost forever? Did he perhaps believe he would still see the grin on Sirius's tired and weary, yet still jubilant face, and hear a bark-like laugh, or hear the paws of a great, black, bear-like dog bounding toward him and leaping at his chest? Did he perhaps still believe in these wondrous things happening?
Or still, had he taken Luna Lovegood's words as some sort of shred of hope? Luna Lovegood, approaching her fifth year at Hogwarts, was the school's most believing student. Often times refereed to as Loony Lovegood, she had been the one to embrace anything without a shed of proof, as Hermione pointed out the previous year. However, Luna had been able to see Thestrals, the black, winged horses, and they had been there, though only revealing themselves to someone who had seen someone snuff it.
So had Luna been right about Sirius simply hiding behind the archway and behind the black, ominous structure of the veil even itself? Both she and Harry had heard the voices behind it as it had rustled in the invisible wind. Had he perhaps believed that someday, whether it not be for many years, he would see that wonderful face of happiness looking back out at him? Or had such all hope drowned away from him?
Or perhaps.simply in the pit of his stomach, he believed that Sirius would be back. In fact, last year, on the day of the End-of-Term Feast, Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor Ghost himself, admitted that Sirius himself could choose to return as a ghost, a mere shadow and imitation of the wizard he once was. So now, even despite Nick's deepest reassurances that Sirius would choose not to return, did he still hold inside him that shred of hope that Sirius would come zooming through his window at any moment, as a transparent ghost simply to prove Nick wrong?
"No," Harry muttered to himself lowly, as though talking to someone who was going delusional. "Of course I don't believe what Luna said; she's crazy. Sirius is dead, and, like Nick said he won't ever come back. I just have to face it. I'm just writing this to get it off my mind, that's it."
That statement was half true, but Harry had to admit, he didn't believe it. He had been forced to believe it the night it happened by Lupin, the immense amount of evidence to sustain the theory, and the need to escape from Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters at the time. However, now, just like when it immediately happened, he did not believe it, and was not truly sure he wanted to.
Harry strode over to the window, tripping over books and loose clothing that he had left all over the room, and wrenched it open. It was still dark outside, though a small bit of light was beginning to creak its way up into the sky. The wind was blowing remarkably hard for the middle of July, as it were. He looked out at the full moon, beginning to wonder exactly how Lupin was feeling at the time because of it, before his train of thought was cut off abruptly by a looming shadowy figure in front of it, growing steadily as it drifted towards the window. He jumped out of the way as a beautiful, snow owl landed inside of the bedroom, the last remnants of a frog crunching underneath her beak.
Harry walked slowly back over to the desk; he was certainly in no hustle to send a letter that was not going to arrive in any particular place whatsoever, or to any particular person. He picked it up and walked slowly back over to Hedwig, who had quite gleefully, swallowed the remains of the frog whole. Harry stroked her feathers lightly and calmly.
"Listen," he whispered softly to her, "I don't expect this letter to find a home, really. But this is really the only thing I've got to comfort me. So this letter is to Sirius. After a couple of days, if you don't find him, peck off the letter, understand? I don't want it back." Hedwig hooted dolefully and was out of the window in a flash.
Harry sighed. He walked over to his bed, thinking of Sirius and wishing, quite painfully indeed, for his return. He lay down on the bed and lifted out a book entitled, "The Dark Arts: Outsmarted" and attempted feebly to read it. He sat staring at a live picture of the conjugation, the movement, and the effects of a perfectly performed Impediment Jinx, though never taking in a single motion or a single word it read. In fact, it seemed that Harry was not reading, because although he kept muttering the word Impedimenta under his breath, he seemed to have distinctly forgotten that he knew hoe to conjure the jinx up perfectly.
He continued reading the book blankly, moving on to the Stunning Spell that he also knew so perfectly. "How to Stun a Dark Wizard" it read. Harry looked through it several times before realizing who was being stunned. In fact, the book had shown none other than Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic himself, stunning Sirius, who had been convicted of the murders of twelve muggles and one wizard, the wizard which was still alive.
He slammed the book shut angrily. Frustrated, he hurled it across the room. It ricochet off of the owl cage, knocking both to the floor and littering the floor with owl droppings. Harry continued to lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling blankly, thinking. As light began to drift slightly quicker over the horizon, Harry finally closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.