A/N: Thanks for all the reviews. I appreciate the feedback. Not sure how long the events of this book are going to take to unfold. But the basilisk and diary are not going to go down quickly or without a fight. School starts back up next chapter. 75k+ hits; 25k+ visitors!

Chapter 21: Summer Fun

Harry spent the next couple of days either with his new favorite objects in the universe or attempting to bring his metamorph abilities to the surface. Of course the peace wasn't meant to last all too long. Someone spiked dinner one night with enough hot sauce to ignite a forest. And everyone appeared to think someone else was to blame.

Harry suspected one of the elves had a sense of humor.

For the remained of June, and the first two weeks of July, the Manor remained in a state of war. Every scrap of clothing was eventually charmed in some embarrassing manner, no one would eat anything served in the house, and doors were opened with extreme caution. Harry still managed to get into paint duels with at least two separate residents a week and Sirius took everyone to a Quidditch match once a week. But the constant pranking was beginning to wear on Harry's last nerve. He may not have started it, but he was going to finish it.

Three people came back to consciousness to the sound of an air horn. That and the fact they were apparently attached to the ceiling. Sirius, Remus, and Tonks were all very confused about just how they had gotten there. Who had put them there was more than obvious. Harry was standing underneath them, and he had a rather irritated look on his face. He was absently petting the basilisk that was draped around his shoulders. Even though he had assured all of them that she wouldn't hurt a fly, it was still pretty damned creepy. And Harry knew that.

"Good, everyone is awake. This has carried on far too long. It was fun to start with, but I had to go out yesterday in the last of the clothes I had that would let me go into the muggle world without breaking the statute of secrecy, in order to get more clothes. I had to willingly go shopping for clothing. I cannot read for more than fifteen minutes without something exploding somewhere in the building. And the training bludgers are still singing off color limericks. It has been a bloody fortnight since that one was pulled off. Enough is enough. I have proven that I can get all three of you at once. With ease. The prank war ends here and now, or the kid gloves come off. I have made arrangements to spend the week with Neville and I leave today. In fact, I am supposed to be Flooing over now. I bid you all good day, and wish you a good week. The superglue will dissolve in about fifteen minutes; the floor has a cushioning charm."

The week Harry had spent with Neville was one of the more relaxing of the summer. Sure for the first couple days they had mostly focused on finishing up and polishing Neville's homework and spending a good number of hours in the Longbottom greenhouses. But Harry enjoyed helping his friend, and he had finally started to get past the associations he had that connected Herbology with the memories of backbreaking labor in his aunt's garden.

Harry then introduced his best friend and comrade-in-arms to paint duels on the third day. It became a daily occurrence between the pair for the rest of the week, and they made the decision that they would have sessions once a week during the school year.

They also had a number of conversations about pureblood culture, continuations of talks that the pair had had during the school year. Harry had spoken with Sirius a number of times, and was finally starting to get a handle on how much information he had been deprived of by growing up with his now imprisoned relatives.

The pair also spent an hour or so in the air each day, Harry giving Neville a few pointers here and there to bolster his confidence. At the end of the week, Harry left Neville saying that if he wanted to come over to the Marauders' Manor each Friday at noon for a paint duel, he was more than welcome. Harry was told that he was invited to Neville's birthday party on the 30th.

Harry made his exit from the Longbottom ancestral home at about noon.

Hauling himself off the floor after being thrown out of the Floo, Harry poked his head into the dining room, figuring it was around about lunch time. Everyone was seated around the table, just about to start lunch, and he said, "Hello residents of Marauders' Manor. Are we all still at war?"

Everyone looked at him, and they all had varying degrees of consternation on their faces. Tonks was the one who broke the silence, "Why'd you glue me to the ceiling alongside these miscreants? They were the source of most of the chaos..."

"Because, Tonks, I wanted to get the point across to everyone all at once, and besides which, you were the one that did the last batch of charms on my clothing. I was irritated."

She looked appropriately shame-faced at this.

Remus and Sirius shared a look, and then Remus said, "There hasn't been a prank played since you left a week ago, and everything has been put back to normal. You hungry cub?"

"Starved."

From then until Neville's birthday, things remained fairly quiet. Harry had set up linking books for all of his classes and was working through 'books equivalent to, or in supplement of, second year'. He also took a couple hours a day to fly in the basement, sometimes using the obstacle course, but mostly he spent the time dodging increasing amounts of bludgers. He was up to four after him constantly by the 30th. He had continued to use Hedwig to securely deliver his mail, though continued to feel bad about it until she explained to him that she needed an excuse to fly around, and he was giving it to her.

He'd also noticed something, and was finally disturbed enough to bring it to the attention of Alistair.

"Al, I've been sleeping less and less each night. It started at the beginning of summer, and I started keeping track two weeks ago. In the past six days, I've only slept four hours a night."

"I was wondering both when it would start to manifest and when you would start to notice. One of the key reasons that any organic being needs sleep is because it must rest. Different beings need different amounts of rest, and for different purposes. A wizard or witch needs rest for body, mind, and magic. Occlumency, in its use of calmly sorting through memories and peacefully examining the defenses achieves that rest, while also restoring it with magic. That leaves you only needing rest for your body and magic. A number of master Occlumens have been known to only need an hour or two of sleep a night."

"And you didn't tell me this why?"

"Didn't know whether or not you would get to the point you would need to know."

"Ahh... Now that it has leveled off..."

"It could still decrease. You haven't finished learning Occlumency and you are still a growing young man."

"Damn."

Waiting in the sitting room to use the Floo for the eleven o'clock start time of Neville's party, which was a good hour away still, so Harry was once more working on willing his fingernails to grow. And they shot forward a noticeable amount. Slipping into his mindscape and recalling the memory, he replayed it over and over again, trying to figure out just how he had managed it. He then noticed a peculiar tingling in what could only be described as his magic when he managed it.

Going back out into the world, Harry focused on calling up that tingling into his fingers and when he finally managed it, willed his fingernails to be an inch longer than normal. And he succeeded! There was pandemonium in the sitting room as he howled his head off in joy. Which of course brought everyone running, wondering what the yelling was for. And he showed them, he had finally managed it.

Everyone except for Tonks congratulated him, who asked, "It's well it good to be able to make them longer, but can you put them back?"

He still took five minutes to get to the point where he could control it, but he did manage to fix his nails without clipping them.

Tonks then said, "Good, now for lesson the second. Be able to do that within a matter of seconds, if not completely and totally spontaneously."

Harry decided to kill the rest of the time until Neville's party by reading, deciding he'd practice speeding up the process later.

Neville's party was a small quiet affair. The twins and Hermione were there, and they generally got him gifts regarding plants and Herbology, due to the fact that he really seemed to love it. Harry made a mental note that he should probably get a hobby in addition to flying around like a maniac.

They spent the rest of the party talking about their summers so far, with Harry's being one of the more eventful. He kept the results of his library visit to himself for now, if only for the fact he didn't have the books with them, and the magic surrounding the books made it impossible for non-Potters to use them. He had been rather upset at that point, and the book explaining the magics didn't mention any way to make exceptions. Hermione was not going to be pleased that unfettered access to a library on par with Hogwarts's could be within arms length but untouchable.

Neville gave them a tour of Longbottom Manor and its grounds before everyone started to leave, with the twins saying that their mother had agreed to Harry going to their home for a week starting the day after his birthday.

Harry spent most of the first half of his birthday practicing his metamorph abilities, but there was only a barely noticeable increase in speed. Dragging himself out of his room for lunch, he opened the door to the dining room and heard, "Surprise!"

He had his wand out and flicked out a stunner in the direction of the party before the word was finished. Everyone hit the ground, a few people yelping in surprise.

Sirius was the first to get up and said, "Okay, new rule, no one surprises Harry in any way, shape, or form. At least he didn't use a concussion spell this time."

After the rather unexpected reaction to the party, things took a little while to get back to normal. They had cake, opened presents, and then went into one of the larger rec-rooms and played billiards and darts. A good while before everyone left, the extensive tour of the magically expanded building began. The Twins were drooling at the indoor Quidditch Pitch, Hermione drooled at the Black Library, and Neville was in awe of the sheer amount of space.

All in all the first birthday party that Harry could remember was fairly awesome.

And the next day, he was at the Weasley home, better known as the Burrow. He was going to be staying in the twins' room on a cot. Alistair had decided to tag along to visit two of his more favorite pranksters.

"Okay, Fred, George, I know what you told everyone you have been up to when Hermione has been present, but what have you really been doing this summer to keep busy?"

"It is really..."

"... quite simple, Harrykins. We've..."

"... been inventing. With..."

"... potions."

And at the mention of that, and noticing the more then prevalent burn and concussive force damage to the room, Alistair quickly morphed into an M1 helmet. They then spent the next week making some rather startling discoveries in the field of prank potions and blowing themselves up. The three found it all to be jolly good fun.

One thing Harry found out that he had never known about was that someone had been writing ridiculous fiction about him and his childhood. He found this out because, apparently, the twins' little sister was a rather rabid fan of his. He made a note to keep his distance from her until she got over it. Hopefully she would get over it. Harry could not abide the thought of having a stalker.

He made a note to have Griphook investigate this. If someone was making obscene amounts of money off of his name and image, he wanted to put a stop to it. He hated his fame with a passion. Besides which, he wanted his cut.

The Weasleys' received their Hogwarts letters while he was there, and planned on going to the Alley the next Wednesday. Harry said he and Sirius would be going on that Monday. Harry, having had a bang up (or is that blow up) week, returned to the Marauders' Manor in high spirits.

That Monday, Harry and Sirius went school shopping. However before that, the Marauder invited his heir into a meeting with the Black Account Manager, Ripclaw. The meeting centered around a plan that Sirius had devised that would impoverish both the Malfoys and the Lestranges. All debts had been bought up for both families and the dissolution of both Lucius's marriage to Narcissa and Rodolphus's to Bellatrix had been set in motion, along with the return of both dowries. With interest. And when the seats on both the legislative and judicial portions of the Wizengamot, along with whatever seats on the Hogwarts Board of Governors, went on sale to attempt solvency, they would be bought up by the Black family. Sirius drew the line at expelling both his cousins from the family.

And it would all start to take place Thursday.

The rest of the day shopping in the Alley was quite uneventful. They missed a book signing that would occur later in the week, but then again that was the point. Shopping was much easier when you don't have a crowd of witches drooling over some dandy. The disturbing thing was that whoever had written out and approved the booklist had a good many of this dandy's books on it!

Harry knew that this could not end well.

The rest of the summer passed quietly, and with a minimum of pranking. Harry had gone though a very good portion of what the linking books were saying was second year level information, and now any text he brought up was just repeating what he had read before. He decided he would keep it up for the first month or so of school, and then he would move on to third year level stuff.

He'd also finally finished learning how to control his nails in a matter of seconds. Tonks had told him to start working on his hair. She was sure he'd figure it out. He decided he'd see what books he had access to concerning metamorphmagi, because Tonks was a terrible teacher.

Soon enough he found himself to be one of the first on the platform, and taking his compartment of choice, the last one on the last car, he settled in to wait for his friends.

A/N2: Doing a little bit of digging, I figured the date of the canon Diagon Alley visit was Wednesday the 12th of August. Harry, having been rescued by the Weasleys three days after his birthday, is then told in a letter from Hermione that she is going to be in London next Wednesday, which would put it on the aforementioned date. The ruination of the Malfoy family occurs on the second Thursday of that month, just one day AFTER the Weasleys' go to Diagon Alley. The Diary is in play.