:8:

"Wake up sleepy head!" Harry opened his eyes to find Liz seated on his bed and shaking him not too gentle "Good, you're awake. Now go dress while I get the others"

"What's going on?" he asked still half asleep.

"Father is back! With presents!" the girl ran away, only then did Harry notice she was wearing a pajama with painted teddy bears; 'girls' he thought, rolling his eyes

It had been almost a week since Harry had arrived at the castle and was beginning to get a hang of his surroundings. Fortunately, as he had had more time to wander than his friends, he found a few shortcuts unknown to them; one of them was a slide that led from the fourth floor to the hall… and was so nice a ride that he used it almost every day to get to breakfast.

He got dressed and used the shortcut to arrive at the main hall where both Liz and Irene were trying to snatch one of the boxes Drake carried in his arms.

"Good morning Harry, slept well?" the man seemed battered and tired, he even had bags under his eyes.

"What ever happened to you?" the man was about to answer when Liz interrupted.

"You don't really want to know. Just come down here and help us with the presents." Harry chuckled but did as told.

Apparently most of the boxes contained a few items the children had asked for months prior. Apart from the toys and other stuff, they all received a wand.

"They are provisional, until you are of age to go to school and have picked your own" the Count addressed and waved them away. Only Harry stayed put.

"Sir, can I have a word with you?" Drake yawned while stretching his back.

"What is it son?"

"I'd like to give you my answer." This seemed to somber the man, as a full awareness awakened in his eyes, he nodded and led them to his study. "But I'd like to have a question answered before"

"Go ahead"

"Why not 'revenge'?" Drake sighed.

"Harry, you must understand this now as I won't repeat it again." The kid nodded "If you make all your life about revenge, you will most likely become that which you hunt. Your soul will be a barren place where no positive emotions can bloom. Revenge is like that; you can use it to fuel your determination, yes, but don't fight with hate and anger in your heart because it will destroy you." Harry frowned, deep in thought "you see, if you make your life revolve around taking revenge for Voldemort's actions. Once you are free of him, the rest of your life will be meaningless; your soul will revolt at that, spiraling downwards to create the very thing you swore to destroy. You will need someone to antagonize you, so that you can live to have your 'revenge'." Drake shook his head. "And as I am sure you do not wish to become Voldemort's successor, I asked you to think for anything but revenge. Revenge is what made Voldemort what he is."

Harry nodded gravely, giving himself some time to digest the answer.

"Then I think I have your answer"

"Let's hear it then"

"Because it's right" The man waited for him to continue, but Harry didn't. Drake sighed.

"I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that." Harry smiled

"I know, I was only testing you" Drake chuckled at the irony "In reality I was tempted to mention revenge, but as you said, it would not only be wrong but unfair to the memory of my parents. Thus I gave it thought and found the reason I would be content with."

"Good. Let's hear it then"

"What you told me the other day changed my perspective: I stopped thinking about what I didn't like or what I wanted to prevent, and started thinking about what I actually wanted. So I'm going to tell you what I want of life.

"I want a life were I'm surrounded by friends, a world where I can actually decide what to do with my life. I want to get to know and travel with my godfather; I want a cute girlfriend and get married to the girl I love… and probably have kids of my own." Drake gave him a small smile "I want to be able to enjoy life while I'm young. I want to live in peace among my loved ones, and most importantly, I want to live my life without having to worry whether either me or my loved ones are in peril" Harry's voice had risen a few levels, and his body was trembling with barely contained emotion. He eyed the older man and saw his smile widen.

"Then let's get to it Mr. Potter, we have wasted more than enough time."

--

Drake had given Harry a letter, which he had to deliver to a guy called 'Sensei Black' in Drake's own words. Yet finding the man had proved a test in itself, as he never seemed to stop moving.

Finally, after three hours of looking, Harry asked a man who led him to the teacher.

"Sensei Black, this kid is looking for you" the man made a reverence before leaving.

Harry was left with a short man with black hair, tanned skin and black eyes, he wore a complete black training Gi with a black belt.

"May I ask who you are boy?" Harry handed the man the letter before answering

"Harry Potter, sir. The Count sent me to you-"

"To begin your training, I see" the man interrupted reading the letter. "Very well kid, go get changed into your Gi so we may start. From now on, you shall address me as Sensei, not Sir."

"Yes sensei."

Harry found out that Sensei Black taught Martial Arts and self-defense to more than one group. They were divided by the color of their belts rather than age. Since his belt was white, he took his place near the others in his same condition… most were adults.

"Now I have to get you all people on your feet in the next six months so that we might take a look at the possibility of you earning your next belt. First of all I will make you notice something" the man took a CD player and placed a disk on it and pushed 'play' "This song shall be your hymn for the rest of your years in this place, so you might as well learn the lyrics."

With those words, Harry started his training full of hopes and certainty… unbeknown to him was the fact that:

This is ten percent luck,

Twenty percent skill,

Fifteen percent concentrated power of will

Five percent pleasure,

Fifty percent pain,

And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

--

Harry collapsed on the bed feeling exhausted and sore all over "Damn", Sensei black had them do 10 laps around the base, making that an almost 5 Km race; and then they had to do 30 push-ups, 30 squats in addition to the warm-up exercises. Becoming strong was much more complicated and hard that what he had thought before "damn."

He made his body move to the shower and taking a bath before falling asleep.

--

Early the next morning.

"Wake up!" Harry rose at the shout echoing inside his head.

"Who? Where? What? Where's the fire?" the boy jumped from the bed clutching his wand, prepared to cast anyone into oblivion. But there was no emergency; it was only sensei Black who stood before him in his training clothes and frowning like mad.

"Quit playing boy, it's getting late for your training. Get dressed!" the Sensei parted before shouting back "you'll start every day at 5 am sharp, look up!"

"Yes, sensei!" Harry shouted back, closing his eyes and silently cursing his luck 'what have I gotten myself into this time?'

--

AT THE BURROW - FEW MONTHS LATER

-

It was nearly three in the morning and all was silent as everyone was asleep. There were no Weasley twins to cause explosions, or kids shouting or girls playing with dolls; the only sound was the sound snoring of the Weasley mother, Molly.

Meanwhile downstairs, the door opened with a soft click; followed by a murmured "we're in."

Four small figures wearing all black jump suits, last generation night vision goggles and other gadgets that would have made any Secret Service member drool with envy walked inside the home. "Command, check for any signs of movement on the radar and warn us"

An older voice answered through the nearly mute comm. channel that linked the teams to the base "Done Snake" and a second later he talked again "the only signal of movement is coming from the third floor; it's too small to be human."

"Good. Sparrow, Black, get the package; Moon and I will cover you."

"Roger" the two bigger figures moved without making a single sound to the stairs, while the other two followed not too close behind watching every step the others took.

Black and sparrow climbed up the first fly of stair without problems. It was only when they reached the top of the next one that Command's voice interrupted them

"Warning group one, there's movement right in front of you." Both teams stopped dead on their tracks.

"Activate shadows, now!" whispered Snake through the channel, and at the same time they all melted into the shadows; they would be covered from the prying eyes as long as they didn't move.

A little redhead girl came out of the room directly in front of team one and walked all the way down to the kitchen to get a glass of water and back to her room to sleep.

"It's only the little girl, keep moving." Snake commanded and kept hiking to the next floor.

Team one reached the last floor and the one and only room there had its door ajar and sound snoring came from within. Black approached the first, overlooking the entirety of the room with his night vision goggles. There were two redheads inside, the smaller one was the one snoring while the older slept on a bed too small for him, near his bed was a cage holding a murky old rat.

"Package sighted" murmured Black "your turn sparrow" the other figure nodded and moved ever so silent and carefully across the room, one couldn't even hear him breathing. He got across the younger boy's bed and to the very end of the room.

"Remember Sparrow, we just need the rat, leave the cage." he didn't get a response, but Snake was aware that whenever Sparrow was focused on one task, he would block out everything else.

Without so much as a noise, he opened the cage and extracted the rat. Unfortunately the animal woke up and started squeaking loudly.

"Merde!" cursed the man running for the door while securing the package inside a leather bag. The older redhead woke up before he could leave the room.

"What's going on here?" demanded Percy Weasley just before a dart embedded on his upper arm; he passed out before he could say more.

But the damage was done, because the parents woke up as if woken by some kind of silent alarm.

Snake and Moon ran to their partners while drawing out their guns. A door bursting open made them backtrack, and from it came the two parents, which fortunately for team two, didn't appear to have seen them.

"Leave my boys!" screeched the mother with banshee-like voice, her husband came running behind her, wand in hand.

"Fire at will!" commanded Snake to his companion and both took aim and shot a barrage of tranquilizer darts. The two adults fell face-first to the ground, and would be out for a couple of hours. They kept their sprint forward, meeting with the rest of their team on the way.

"Portkeys, now!" snake made sure everyone has gone before activating his own.

And thus the house fell silent again, except for the sound snoring of the youngest boy whose sleep hadn't been bothered.