Chapter 1

Harry sat in his bedroom staring morosely out his window. He had to admit to himself that this was his worst summer to date and no amount how many cups of tea he swilled down it didn't help him feel any better. To say it was his worst summer is quite something for a skinny dark haired fifteen year old who had spent the ten first 10 years of his live in the cupboard under the stairs of number four Private Drive.

Harry didn't hate his relatives to be honest and had no desire to subject them bouts of cruciatus or any other similar painful or humiliating curses. He actually pitied them to an extent for they were in his view a bunch of unsophisticated philistines barely evolved from apes. This didn't extend to all muggles of course even if they were in all ways inferior to wizards. Oh yes they had technology but magic made the impossible possible. A satellite couldn't find an unplottable location and a simple shield charm or ward against physical attacks would stop anything from a throwing knife to a nuclear warhead. He postulated that the greatness of a man or wizard is measured by how they treat their inferiors so he didn't keep with the « superior » wizard nutters like Voldemort or Malfoy.

To be perfectly honest have the problems in the wizarding world stemmed from the muggleborn question. The purebloods were unwelcoming snobs so the muggleborns tended after their education to disappear back into the muggle world where they could work a system they knew often using magic to their advantage keeping it a hidden secret from their partners and letting their magic die with them. The puebloods on the other hand were producing less and less children and slowly killing themselves through inbreeding and wars brought on by their prejudices (hundreds of families had died through the goblin revolts, centaur riots etc..)

However these musings were not the reason for Harry's state of mind, no this was due to the death of one Sirius Black which was sharply brought back to him by a letter from Gringotts requesting his presence on the 1st of August for the reading of his will. Dumbledore the control freak that he was, tried to forbid him from going stating security reasons but he had quite firmly told him to put his favourite Christmas present, a sock, in it. The old coot wasn't trying to rob him or anything but he had become so used to keeping information from everyone about everything that he had to try. It was only when he pointed out that that the goblins letter was a two way portkey from his room to the bank that the barmy old codger relented and got his overly large nose out of Harry's business.

Obviously the goblins, surly little buggers that they were would only be to delighted to record the will of a wanted mass-murdering criminal if only to get one over the ministry and it's pettiness with regards to the goblins. The ministry only had to take one look at the will department in Gringotts where the will of a person automatically activated on his death to know that Wormtail was alive and Sirius was dead. So all in all it was thanks to the ministry-goblin relations or absence of that Sirius left a will.

So there Harry was sitting on his bed staring out he window holding the letter waiting for the Portkey to activate. The goblins like any self respecting magic user had omitted to mention the time of activation.. Typical although to be fair when one dabbles with a force that defies logic one does tend to lose the notion of the importance of being logical or practical for that matter.

Harry was suddenly pulled from his musings by a sharp tug in his navel at 2:37 31s in the afternoon (see no logic!) and proceeded lot arrive on his arse in the middle of the bank.