A/N: Hi guys! Sorry this is a bit late, it's been hectic at work for a while. Next chapter, Harry and Cartia on the Hogwarts Express. Hope you like this chapter!

The first of September is one of the most important days of a young witch or wizard's life. It was a chaotic day of excitement, new friends and of course, crying mothers. It was the day that the students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry left to begin the school year. It was morning and all around Britain the soon-to-be students were trudging around their homes half-asleep, packing their trunks for Hogwarts. The Potter household was no exception.

"Mum where are my socks?", Harry called out as he rifled through his drawers.

"Have you checked the laundry hamper?" Lily replied from the bottom of the landing.

"Yes." Harry replied

"How about in the bottom of your clos…."

"I already checked in the bottom of my closet." Harry interrupted.

"JAMES," Lily called as she searched through the laundry basket. "CAN YOU FIND HARRY'S SOCKS?"

"Lil," James popped his head out from the kitchen doorway "I'm literally in the room right next to you."

Lily flushed bright red and stammered "I.. I.. I knew that. I mean… I would have known that… well obviously I didn't know that but I mean I could and STOP SMIRKING POTTER."

James struggled to hide his devious smirk that had appeared at the unusual event of his wife being lost for words. Lily shot him a murderous glare and his grin shrunk.

"MUM," Harry called from his upstairs bedroom, "STOP SCARING DAD, I NEED HIM TO HELP ME FIND MY SOCKS."

"Nice to know how much I mean to you bud" James said sarcastically as he tried to back out of Lily's danger zone.

"How much time do we have left?" Lily asked.

James checked his watch. "About half and hour."

Lily sighed "I'm excited for him James, I really am. It's just that I'm worried about him, you know how people treat him. He'll be treated like a mini celebrity, people will try and be friends with him for selfish reasons and I don't want that for him."

James's joking smile softened "Look Lil, I'll have a talk to him but trust me he'll be fine. He has your scathing tongue and my razor sharp wit. He'll be more than fine; he's going to be great."

Lily smiled but it didn't quite meet her eyes, "Ok but promise you'll talk to him."

"I'll go right now," James said.

"Wait," Lily handed James a pair of purple snitch covered socks, "They were under the couch,"

James smiled as he stuffed the socks in his coat pocket and headed up to his sons room.

Harry James Potter grew up with an artist mother, a quiddich fanatic father, a bookworm uncle and a motorcycle obsessed Sirius. This meant that he was exposed to very different styles and influences, which made for a rather interesting room. A whole wall was filled with bookshelves. These shelves where stacked with hundreds of books. Mostly mysteries, some textbooks and a few books about quiddich. Harry was very proud of his little library; he was particularly fond of his hardcover Sherlock Holmes series. The remaining walls were a mix of quiddich posters and artworks done by both him and Lily. His desk held stacks of books at least five high, his prized golden snitch given to him by his uncles on his birthday and various mechanical parts and tools that he tinkered with under the tutelage of his uncle Sirius. His easel was next to his broom in the corner of his room where the floor was heavily stained with various bright paint colours and muddy twig prints. At night the ceiling was bewitched to resemble softly glowing galaxies.

James stepped into Harry's room, "You in here bud?"

"Yeah over here," a muffled voice answered from behind a small mountain of spare parts.

James walked over to get a better view of the pile. He could see a small tuft of Harry's jet black hair over the top of the mountain of mechanical parts.

"Hey dad do you reckon that they'll let me bring my parts and tools to Hogwarts?" Harry asked as he threw a few textbooks across the room into his half-packed trunk.

"To be perfectly honest no, but you know what I always say," James said with a grin.

"Rules are only good for breaking!" Harry chorused along with his father.

"Tell you what bud, I'll send your parts to Sirius and he can look after them for you."

Harry gave James a doubtful look, "You do realize that you're basically going to give Uncle Sirius unrestricted access to my tools. There's no way that I'm ever seeing them again once he gets to tinkering with them."

"You know sometimes I think that you're too smart for your own good." James said shaking his head.

Harry grinned at his fathers teasing compliment.

"Listen Harry, we need to talk before you leave." James said.

Harry was nervous. His father called him many names, Bud, Mini Prongs, Mischief on Wheels, Champ and Marauder number 6 (Cartia had beat him out for 5th place by 4 weeks). But the one name James only called him when he was serious was Harry. Harry sat down beside his dad.

"Sure Dad, what do you want to talk about."

"You know about Voldemort" James started.

"Yeah, He was a really dark wizard. He killed thousands of people. And he died on Halloween night eleven years ago. At the cottage that you, Mum and I used to live in when I was a baby. His spell backfired and then he died."

"That's mostly right, but your mum and I haven't told you the whole story about the last part. He did come to our house that night and he did die, but not because a spell backfired. When we heard him blast open the door your mum took you upstairs, cast a protection charm around you and came back downstairs to help me fight him off. He came at us with everything he had and so did we. Buddy, you wouldn't believe how amazing your Mum was, there's a reason that she was top of our year and head girl. We were holding our own but he was skilled, and he wasn't wearing down like we were. Mind you, your mum and I had a few tricks up our sleeves. One of the perks of being an unregistered Animagus is that nobody expects you to randomly turn into a stag during a fight. And your mum well, she'd been working for years on perfecting a tricky little charm that she created for her N.E.W.T.S which tricked a person's wand into thinking that it was casting the correct spells when it was in fact simply shooting out bursts of light. We'd come up with a plan months earlier, if worst came to worst Lils would use the charm and when he used Avada Kedava on me I would "play dead, so to speak. Then when he stepped over me to get to your mother I would use the killing curse on him before he could know what hit him. The plan worked and we had killed him. That's why people stare at us in the streets and shake our hands in shops. Your mum and I aren't just well known because our last name is Potter, we're well known because your mum and I defeated the greatest dark wizard who ever lived."

Harry stared wide eyed at his father and swallowed.

He searched his fathers face for a trace of amusement or guilt to see if his father was playing a prank on him. None of the usual signs were there. This meant either his father wasn't kidding or he was getting better at lying.

Harry started to awkwardly laugh "Good one Dad, you almost had me. This is your most convincing one since you told me that I wouldn't be able to be an Animagus because there was only one allowed per family."

"Bud," James started, "I'm not kidding."

Harry blinked a few times to properly process the information.

"Okay," He began slowly, "So you and Mum defeated the most powerful wizard in the world. Not gonna lie, that's slightly overwhelming. Is there anything else I need to know? Any other colossal family secrets? Did you and Mum was a time turner to kill J.F.K?"

James smiled at his sons' sarcasm, "Nope, that's all of them. Although I wouldn't bring it up at Hogwarts that you and I are unregistered Animagi. It's awesome, but kind of illegal."

Harry grinned at the mention of their shared secret. "You do realize it's going to come up eventually. Like, if I get bored and want to explore the forbidden forest as an animal….."

"Both Minnie and your Mum would kill you." James interrupted.

Harry continued breezily as if he hadn't been interrupted, "Or if I get hungry and need to sneak out into the kitchen. It sure would be harder to get into trouble as a cute little puppy."

James quickly realized that his son was baiting him. Harry was playing to James's love of mischief of pranks.

"You have the map remember," James reminded, "There are enough secret passages for you to sneak into just about anywhere. Puppy or not."

When Harry had decided at the age of 10 to become an Animagus his family were all for it. Lily did require a little persuading but was reminded that the son of James Potter and Lily Evans was likely to just do it anyway. So Harry underwent the process. During this time everyone who knew about it made bets on which animal Harry would turn out to be. James was sure that it would be a stag like his was. Lily thought that it would turn out to be a lion because second to James, Harry was the most bravely reckless person she had ever met. Remus thought it would turn out to be a bird because Harry was such a natural flyer. Sirius was convinced that it would be a dog like his was, not for any particular reason other than that he wanted for it to be. Cartia thought that he would be a niffler because he was so good at finding the golden snitch. Harry had to constantly remind her that Animagi could only turn into non magical creatures. She in turn constantly teased Harry that he would turn out to be a fish, one of the most useless Animagi. McGonagall publicly refused to partake in any nonsense bets, especially since she was a registered Animagus who would never encourage illegal Animagi. Privately she agreed with Remus that Harry would be a bird type because of his aptitude for flying. To everyone's surprise it turned out that Sirius was correct. A witch or wizards Animagus form is determined by their dominant personality traits. Harrys combination of loyalty, mischief, bravery and friendship as his dominant traits made him ideal as a young dog. Unlike Sirius his dog wasn't all black, his was fluffy and white with black ears. Harry being a dog was perfect for sneaking around and charming people into giving him food or letting him into places. A bit too perfect actually, he had a tendency to sneak into rooms to lay out pranks perfectly as a dog to be less noticeable.

"Boys!" Lily yelled from downstairs, "The train leaves in twenty minutes and I'm not really looking forward to having to try and apperate outside of Hogwarts because we missed it."

"Coming!" Harry and James chorused in unison.

Harry and James rushed down the stairs, pulled on their coats and went to leave when Harry realized that he had forgotten something.

"I left Hedwig behind!" Harry cried out.

Hedwig was Harry's owl. The snowy white owl was Harry's tenth birthday present and Harry couldn't wait to take her to Hogwarts.

"Calm down Harry," Lily said, "Accio Hedwig!"

A silver cage flew down the stairs and zoomed into James's arms. The owl inside squawked in indignation.

"Ok bud we have everything, you ready?" James asked.

Harry looked at his home for what he knew would be the last time for months.

"I'm ready"