Thanks for the reviews! Maybe the chapter wasn't so bad… or maybe you are all just being nice! =) Either way, thanks. Reviews are what keep me going.

Also, someone asked how often I update. I'm trying for weekly now that school is started, but it may be more frequently than that. For example, I've got ten chapters up in about twenty-two days… but that was before school started. I'm estimating that this will be around 20 chapters long, although it could very easily be longer than that… we'll just have to see.

Any other questions that you want to know? Or maybe you asked one and I missed it. Just let me know…

OK, well, Harry's having a little owl problem and so we should probably move the focus back to him and not to the author's incessant babbling.

DISCLAIMER IN CHAPTER 1

Chapter 10

Owls

Harry tried to wave off the multitude of owls that had descended upon him. Most of them took the hint and returned to their previous perch, but at least fifty continued to fight each other to get to Harry. After frantically avoiding them for a couple of minutes, knocking over a chair and banging his shin in the process, Harry finally lost patience. "HOLD IT!!" Startled, the owls rose into a flurry around him and again Harry ducked for cover. Yelling loudly both so that the owls could hear and to relieve a little stress, Harry informed them in no uncertain terms what he thought of them. "You blasted, bloody owls! Back off! I can't open them all at once. Go back and I'll call you!" Hooting indignantly, the pushy owls rejoined their kin and awaited Harry's further orders.

Harry heaved a sigh of annoyance and began the long task of gathering his mail. "OK, any mail from the Ministry?" Two rather pompous looking birds rose majestically into the air and delivered their stiff and official looking letters. Deciding not to open them until he had them all organized, Harry set them in a pile and moved on. "Dumbledore?" One letter. "Snape?" Three letters, a stack of newspapers and a parcel that contained a small pamphlet that had obviously been the ministry's way of notifying the public of Voldemort's defeat. Snape was obviously making weekly reports, in lieu of any instructions from Harry on the frequency of said reports. These made a second pile.

Harry looked at the remaining owls and sighed again. It had certainly been a while since he'd received fan mail. "Any owl that is from someone that I have never met, please just return to your master." Disgruntled, more than half of the owls took flight and left out the window, winging their way back to their soon to be disappointed masters and mistresses. Harry gritted his teeth and ground out. "Any mail from Sirius Black." He hadn't even finished the last syllable before he was diving for cover again, as thirty or forty owls swooped down.

Swearing under his breath, Harry started to remove the letters. Gathering that pile together took a while. Remus Lupin's pile was smaller, only three letters, but Ron and Hermoine's together nearly equaled Sirius' stack. The stack from the assorted Weasley family members was also rather large. Finally, the miscellaneous stack was finished, and Harry sat down at the table and looked at the letters stretching out in front of him. Then, with a huge sigh, he lowered his head and thumped it on the table a couple of times. He really didn't want to know what they had to say, but eventually curiosity finally got the better of him, and he reached for the letters from the ministry.

Both were written on a heavy parchment, covered with assorted seals and important looking signatures, and used nearly a hundred words when ten would do. One was an official apology, stating that Harry had been declared innocent and stating that a sizable sum had been deposited in his account at Gringotts as reparation for the years Harry had spent in Azkaban. With a sniff of disgust, Harry set this aside and opened the other letter. It was a formal declaration regarding Harry Potter being awarded the Order of Merlin, 1st class.

Harry snorted. The great gits were plenty happy to honor him now, but they hadn't been even willing to listen to his side of the story when it had been suspected that he had turned dark. Because of that hypocrisy, Harry could honestly say that he didn't particularly care that he had just received the highest honor that could be given a witch or wizard. It just didn't mean anything to him. Shrugging, Harry tossed the declaration over by the other, and moved on the Dumbledore's letter. Just as Harry suspected, it was both an apology and a thank you, combined with a few questions. Not very personal, but then Dumbledore was likely quite aware of just how low Harry's opinion of him would be.

The information from Snape was interesting, and Harry spent quite a while poring over the informative letters and articles from the Daily Prophet that concerned him. Snape gave details regarding the remaining death eater's fates, which varied depending upon their crimes. Most would be receiving a trial in a few months, once all the information and evidence had been gathered. Snape also relayed some of the Order of the Phoenix's dealings with the ministry and the honors that they had been awarded due to their 'exemplary service.' Fudge was obviously ignoring the fact that he'd made their job much harder and that most of the Order members considered him an idiot of the first degree. Harry chuckled. He did agree with the Order on one point, at least.

However, the newspapers had seemingly attached themselves to Harry Potter as the most newsworthy topic of the day. Most of the speculation regarding his life in general bordered on funny. However, some of the ideas regarding his past and or current whereabouts were almost offensive. During his annoyed perusal of an article by Rita Skeeter, which proclaimed to the world that Harry Potter had tragically committed suicide mere moments after the defeat of You-Know-Who, Dobby arrived bearing lunch. Harry munched away while continued to attack the pile of letters. Avoiding the letters from those that he had at one time considered his best friends and family, he worked his way through the miscellaneous pile, receiving thank you letters from people like Neville, Dean, Cho and many other people who he remembered from his years at Hogwarts.

Tucking away the last letter in that pile, one from old Mrs. Figg, who was obviously connected to the wizarding world in some way, Harry faced the rest of the letters with indecision. He didn't want to read them. Yet, in some way, he did. Growling at his own confusion, Harry picked up one at random from Sirius' pile and opened it, noting that the date was just the day before yesterday. He must have gotten the most recent one, or at least one of the most recent ones, since the man had obviously been writing more than one a day.

Dear Harry,

I realize that the fact that you haven't been replying to any of my previous letters probably means that you won't reply to this one, but I hold out hope. Or maybe I'm just working off nervous frustration, writing a letter that you probably won't even read.

Anyway, I'll just repeat what I've told you before. I'm sorry that I didn't have the faith in you that you deserved. I'm so sorry that I've failed you, not only as a godfather and guardian, but as a friend. I doubt you'll ever be able to forgive me, but I know for certain that I'll never forgive myself. Out of all of the people on this earth, I should have known that something was wrong with the picture that was painted of you. I cannot explain away my stupidity. I made a huge mistake, and it could have cost you your life.

Remus tells me to mention that although he hasn't written as many letters as I have, he feels the same way. He also says that I've gone rather overboard with the letters, but I don't think that I have. I guess I continue to hope that you might read one of them. The owls haven't returned, so I don't even know if they are finding you, or if you are alive at all, and I'm really quite worried…

I think that I'm officially just babbling now.

I'm running out of ways to put it, and my letter writing skill is leaving me. I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, not after the hypocritical way that I treated you, but if you ever want to come home, there will always be a place for you wherever I am.

Please be safe.

I miss you. I'm sorry.

Sirius

Harry crumpled the letter in his fist and stalked out of the room, leaving the rest of the letters where they were. A part of him wanted to write Sirius back, tell him it was fine, and return to being the boy that he had been. But he couldn't do that. He wasn't the same. He never would be again. The betrayal of those he had considered his only family had cut him deeply and the scars from that pain couldn't be erased by an apology. The only reason he was still even sane had nothing to do with his friends. They had deserted him, and he had had to depend on fate, luck, and the mistakes of his worst enemy for help. He couldn't trust again, because whenever he trusted someone, he got hurt. And Harry wasn't sure he'd be able to live through another horror like that again.

It was better if he just stayed away.

Azkaban had changed him, and he knew it. He could tell by the way that he reacted to things, the way that nearly nothing could bring a genuine smile to his face, that he was emotionally scarred. Harry realized this, knew he was going to have to deal with it someday, and purposefully shoved that date farther away. Although realization of a problem is the first step to healing it, it wasn't enough. He couldn't deal with the pain that thinking of those that he'd loved brought. Not yet, maybe never.

The only thing that he really knew is that he didn't want to leave the wizarding world. He wasn't a muggle, and although that would definitely be one way to become normal, Harry couldn't give up his magical side. It was too much a part of what he was. It wasn't magic's fault that a lot of the people that were blessed with the use of it were idiots. He would rather become a hermit than give up the only thing that he'd ever found in his life that he was comfortable with.

It was during his furious pacing through the halls of his new home that a thought occurred to him. Someone, somewhere, had all of his belongings. Although his trunk and the clothes and old school books that were in it were rather useless to Harry now, he did have some items of value that he wanted back. His father's invisibility cloak, for one, along with his photo album that contained the precious pictures of his parents. His wand had likely been snapped, but the other items had to be somewhere. Those little bits of the past would help to make this large castle a little more like somewhere he could call home. Harry stopped to ponder, almost desperate to keep his mind off of Sirius' letter, and wondered if anyone had discovered his secret hiding place under the floor boards at Number Four Privet Lane. That was where he last remembered having his photo album.

He tried not to think about that night much. He'd relived it for the dementors pleasure often enough as it was. Sitting quietly in his room, as normal, to be suddenly called down, dragged out of the house to meet one of Uncle Vernon's 'friends', who turned out to be a wizard. A death eater, in fact, who had handed Vernon a fat envelope in exchange for the struggling boy. Vernon hadn't even had his back turned ten seconds before Harry had heard the muttered 'stupify' that had ushered in blackness. Blackness that only faded to become a battlefield full of bloody bodies and angry aurors that were blaming him for the carnage. Like everyone else had.

After about two seconds of deliberation, Harry decided to break his self-imposed exile in the interest of checking for his photo album. It was definitely his most prized possession, and one that he wanted back as soon as possible. The chance that it was still at the Dursley's was pretty good, and Harry liked the fact that he wouldn't have to deal with any magical beings in retrieving part of what was his.

If the Dursleys got a little well deserved comeuppance at the same time, well, who was he to complain? It wasn't as if they hadn't done enough to deserve it.

James Potter would have been proud of the scheming look on his son's face.

COMING SOON: The occupants of #4 get a very unwelcome visitor, who dishes out a little revenge, and wait… a portkey?

Heh! I am already working on the next chapter, and I am having an absolutely obscene amount of fun with it. I'll try to get it up sometime during the week, but I don't really know when. Um, a couple of other non-important things. First, I just want to repeat that I am paying for the author services, so if you want to get a free email when I update, you can sign up for that. Someone might as well get the use of it, since I'm paying for it… Also, if you want to check out other fan fiction, both HP and not, go to my user profile, I've got some links to my favorite sites there. I'm trying to get more up, but all of my links are buried in the mess I call my favorites folder and I only find them when I'm organizing, which isn't very often. Anyway, you might find something you like there… -krtshadow