A tense silence permeated the air as all its occupants sat in its presence, looks of astonishment plastered on their faces. The youngest, a handsome, green eyed brunette perhaps looked the most uncomfortable of them all, his fingers twiddling and body jerking even as his eyes remained surprisingly blank.

The other occupants looked at each other wearily, occasionally shooting sympathetic and pitying looks towards the boy who lived. Bloodfang cleared his throat, looking straight at Sirius with a gleam in his eyes which left Sirius feeling oddly uncomfortable.

" I don't doubt you Lord Black but are you undeniably sure that Harry James Potter, son of Mr and Mrs James Potter under your custody?" He repeated the question for probably the fourth time in the past hour but something in his tone irked something inside Sirius which made him sit a little straighter and answer in a much more lord like manner than his usually rude and cocky one.

" Yes." Was the prim and polite reply to Bloodfang's answer.

" Well then prove it!" Gristlespear cried out, not at all liking the situation thrust upon him. There was something in this business which made his hair stand up unpleasantly.

" It was written in James and Lily's will!" The agitation in Sirius's voice rose, revealing his inner frustration and confusion as he practically shouted the sentence. Remus looked at his best friend, worried for him.

He remembered the day Harry was born. It was a pleasant cloudless day with birds chirping and a gentle breeze blowing through the air when their beacon of light was born. He remembered everything which happened the first time when Harry was introduced to them.

It was an Order meeting when Dumbledore had brought in baby Harry with Lily and James trailing close behind. He remembered being confused when Dumbledore handed the mysterious baby to Lily and James, the betrayal and confusion when they told that this was their baby, the undercurrent of understanding hidden behind waves of confusion which grasped him when they told them the reason why the birth of Harry was a kept a secret from even his brothers, the huge fight that had followed their declaration, the period of forgiving each other as they did not want to lose each other in the war like it was yesterday. But on the day when both the parties had forgiven each other, Lily and James quietly took them to an adjacent room in their house to gravely explain little Harry's future. They told them everything from Harry's godfather to the people they would like their child to live with should something happen to them and if his memory did him justice then Harry's line of custody went something like this.

First Sirius, then him, then Minerva, then Lily's aunt Pearl and cousin Gale claiming the last spot. Lily had warned him that under no circumstances should Harry be going to either her monster of a sister, Petunia or...Dumbledore. Dumbledore? Without meaning to do so, Remus blurted out the name Dumbledore. Immediately everyone's focus was trained on him and he blushed under the scrutiny of gazes and raised eyebrows that he was receiving, before clarifying himself.

" I mean when Harry was born, Lily and James had told us the people who would take custody of him should anything happen to him. But in that list, Dumbledore's name was nowhere mentioned. It was pretty confusing to us as I was nearly sure that after Sirius's name, Dumbledore would have but it did not. And if any of us on the light side have the power to suppress such a major deciding factor as a will, it would definitely be him…..And I have a bad feeling in my gut that he is the one who did it."

At the end of his narrative, Remus rains his eyes on Harry, worried for his adoptive godson. Harry's eyes were wide with confusion, frustration, anger with an undercurrent of betrayal present on his ashen face and he caught Harry's hand on his own, his heart aching for the stress the poor boy was being kept under. Harry's eyes did not go away from his face but he could sense that Harry was grateful for someone anchoring him, keeping him stable in this sea of madness. However the sound of rusting paper reached his ears and after sharing a look of worry with Sirius, he glanced at the goblins who were looking at them thoughtfully.

" Now, I do remember," Gristlespear started, looking at his companion before scowling and continuing," that yes, Dumbeldore had managed to suppress the will of the Potters by manipulating another goblin to do his task but it was too late. However, I tried sending you numerous letters Heir Potter throughout the years to come see your parent's will, hoping that you would have the addresses of the others so I could reach them bar Lord Black ,of course."

" But I did come to Gringotts once with Hagrid when I was 11 to remove some coins from my vault." Harry spoke excitedly, green eyes wide. Gristlespear resumed stroking the folds under his chin, thinking before answering slowly.

" I might be busy in some other part of Gringotts, Heir Potter or I might not have seen you."

" Could we hear the will now?" Sirius spoke shakily and at once both Remus and Harry trained their gazes to the goblins, both fearing and hopeful for the answer they might receive.

" We may be able do so since the goblin who suppressed their will is now retired and with me being the head goblin to the House of Potter..." Gristlespear trailed off thoughtfully. He looked once into the excited emerald green orbs of Harry and did not have the heart to refuse the boy. With a quick yes resulting in exciting yet weary expressions, the group got up and quickly travelled to the depths of Gringotts where the Potter vault was located. When he came for the first time, Harry felt that the carts of Gringotts moved too fast, almost as if they were eager to plunge into its depths, but now he felt that moving a little faster would not have hurt somebody. His legs hurt from being stuffed into the overloaded cart and his back ached from being bent for so long, but his mind was firmly stuck on the will. Why did it feel like the will was a major answer to his questions. After an extremely long journey of five minutes, the group was standing outside the Potter vault.

A fierce looking skeletal dragon guarded the outside of the vault, blindly thrashing against the chains which held it in place. Chills travelled down Harry's spine at the mere sight of the dragon as goosebumps covered his arms when he came to the startling realisation that they needed to cross the dragon to reach the vault. Was there any worse way to die?

But Harry's fears were unwanted for both Bloodfang and Gristlespear took out an odd silver instrument and began shaking it at once, filling the space with its harsh voice. The dragon resumed its vigorous shaking, roars coming out of its mouth as both the goblins effectively distracted him. They reached the door of the vault and at once Harry realised that it was the same as the Hogwarts wall which Hagrid had taken him to on their first tour here. However a question sprung to the forefront of his mind and he blurted it out, too curious to keep it within himself any longer.

" Isn't Bloodfang the head goblin of the House of Black? Shouldn't his coming in the vault be a concern?" He received a chuckle from both Remus and Sirius before the latter hurried to explain the situation to him.

" Your grandmother, Dorothea Potter, belonged to the Black family before she was married to your grandfather. Thus you are,indirectly, a member of the Black family through your grandparents. And also prongslet, as your godfather I assure you that I will leak none of the Potter family's secrets so you do not need to maintain your Lord persona now." Sirius finished with a wink in Harry's directions.

Even as his cheeks flushed red, Harry's mind reeled from the fact that his grandmother had been a Black. It was due to this fact that he didn't notice the fact that the goblins had opened the vault door and thus it came as a shock to him when he first saw the vault owned by his family.

Rich was an understatement so as to describe this magnificent vault. Its plain and smooth black walls were littered with paintings, shelves which contained numerous treasures, numerous potions in jewelled flasks, goblets, some thick old books and strange things which Harry couldn't quite name. However it was the flood of coins which crammed the vault from its ceiling to the floor that took Harry's breath away.

" On the other side of the door," Sirius's voice rose Harry out of his stupor and he looked at the door on the far right of the vault which his godfather was gesturing with his hands," is another chamber which mostly contains more family books and rare potions." Sirius was sadly smiling as he spoke this and Harry was suddenly painfully reminded of the fact that Sirius too had lost his best friends on the horrendous night Harry had lost his parents. He moved to take his godfather's hand, knowing that both of them needed the maximum support of each other if they were to pass this day without any tears failing and saw out of the corner of his eyes that Remus did the same. He smiled sadly at the two men, aware of the depth of their losses and received in kind.

Bloodfang cleared his throat, breaking their mushy moments and silently gestured to the neatly folded piece of an old parchment paper and a glass orb with something silvery roaming inside it. Harry was confused at seeing the orb. Parchment paper was understood, but a glass orb? What was the use of a glass orb? However it seemed Remus understood and shakily pushed Sirius towards both of those items.

He walked towards the items with his trembling legs and shakily picked the items on his hands, rooted to the ground while his glassy eyes stared at a spot on the wall. Remus walked towards his best friend slash brother with equally shaky steps, extracting the items from his hand, before almost hugging them as if he was scared that someone would take them away from him even as Harry walked up to the group and hugged all of them, soaking the last essence of James and Lily Potter. The goblins stood at one side, allowing the group some much needed time to remember James and Lily Potter before they gently plucked the items out of their hands, clearing their throats.

" To my office then? '' Bloodfang answered the unasked question and got three shaky nods in reply. Wordlessly the group followed the goblins to Bloodfang's office, each lost in his own thoughts. On reaching inside, they immediately settled on the chair as Gristlespear placed the letter and the orb on the table.

" Should we call the rest of the party required? " He questioned and received a polite no as his answer. " Let's start. "Sirius told, trembling at what was about to come. It had been so long since that incident that he wanted more than anything to forget it.

His stay in Azkaban had not helped him in that regard whatsoever, in fact, it had even degraded his own self respect. Every minute, every second he spent in that nightmarish cell, regretting not agreeing on James's idea of him being their secret keeper, regretting befriending that traitor, regretting not being able to see his godson again, regretting let Pettigrew escape, regretting not thinking and contacting Remus...He regretted so many things, so many… But now, now even seeing James's messy scrawl or Lily's perfect calligraphy was giving him heart attacks. But it was inevitable and delaying it would be an ididotic mistake. So he steeled his nerves, using every ounce of his self control to keep the remainder of his dignity intact.

A quick peek revealed that Remus was doing the same but Harry was struggling to compose himself. His heart sank for the poor boy. Not even fifteen yet and his brave godson had gone through so much that none of the wizards even thrice his age should go through. It was a wonder that Harry had not faltered under the heavy weight of the mantle he had to carry and now this. He tightly grasped Harry's hand in his own and belatedly saw Remus doing the same. Offering a small smile in response to Harry's look of gratitude, the three steeled themselves so as to not get washed by the tidal waves of madness which were sure to follow the reading of the will.

Gristlespear wordlessly questioned if he should open the will or not and got three determined, if slightly stiff nods as a response. Harry was confused when instead of doing whatever they were supposed to do, Gristlespear silently beckoned him to come towards the orb but complied anyway. On reaching it, the goblin instructed him to place the hand against the orb. Now a tad bit curious, Harry splayed his palms against the glass orb, feeling the cold seeping into his hands. Why did the orb suddenly become more enthralling to him? And why did the strange silvery thing resume its strange movements much more vigorously, as if almost wanting to escape its prison? He looked at Gristlespear for further instructions and was only graced with a raspy" Release some of your magic and direct it inside the orb through your mind, almost as if making the memory a path for the memory to escape."

All of the instructions sounded strange to him, hell the whole orb idea sounded bizarre, but he went along with it. Doing the way Gristlespear told him to, Harry released some of his magic, resulting in the aura around his hand going a light shade of glittering grey, before he directed a path for the silvery memory in his mind. Suddenly the thick glass of the orb almost seemed to disappear behind his hand and he staggered onto his feet, falling ungracefully into his chair and immediately holding both of his only living family's hands.

The figures of James of Lily Potter rose in unison, an odd translucent silver colour, before they gave a sad smile in the general direction of the three and started speaking in an unnaturally hollow, grave voice.

" We James and Lily Potter, being of sound mind, body and health, do hereby declare our will. First for our best friend slash brother, we leave him with strict instructions so as to not blame himself for what happened. This was inevitable with the war going around us and we knew we had to die, Pettigrew only acted as a catalyst to that. And yes, we did have our suspicions but before we could confirm them and take the required action, it was too late. To Sirius Orion Black, we leave the sum of fifty thousand galleons and some of the properties we own in the magical world. To Remus John Lupin, we leave a sum of fifty thousand gallons with a strict order that we are not doing charity and will haunt him in his dreams if he does not do so. Furthermore we leave some of the muggle and magical properties we own in Hegdefire, Canada and other places with hopes that he may have a place to call home. To Mcgongal, Andromeda, Lily's muggle cousins and all our other loved ones, we leave the sum of a hundred gallons with hopes for their brighter future. To Harry James Potter," here both started tearing a bit," we first would like to tell him that we love him very much. We leave all of our rest money to him, the Potter Manor and all of the rest properties to him. We would also like him to read the letter after this is over."

At the end of this they were both smiling in an oddly sad way, as if knowing something bad was about to happen but before anyone could question why, they disappeared with the orb. Before Harry could ask what the hell was happening, a letter was firmly placed in between his hands. Almost robotically he opened it before reading it aloud

Dearest Harry,

If you are reading this letter then James and I are already dead. You might have probably seen the will and are wondering what we needed to cover in this letter that we could not cover in the will.

You see Harry, it was the reign of darkness when my pregnancy was announced. Naturally, I feared for my baby's future and myself but promised to him that he would always live, regardless of whether his parents would live or not. Sadly it was a fruitless promise as even after carrying him to the term, my baby was born still.

I had sunk into a state of depression when I first saw the state in which my baby was born. James was there to comfort me just moments after our baby was registered to be dead, both of us crying our hearts out. Suddenly Dumbledore had appeared into our room, carrying a baby.

He persuaded us that it was an innocent baby he had found outside, left by his cruel and heartless parents and coaxed us into adopting it. First we tried to refuse but I guess he had used an imperio charm on us to do his bidding. As soon as you were placed into my arms Harry, you became ours. I guess I just used you as a substitute for my dead baby boy, but can you blame me? I was grieving Harry. But right from the moment you officially became ours, I could not shake off the feeling that you were not what Dumbledore claimed you were. You did not look like a starved, abused boy which he painted you to be.

It is with this, that I request you Harry to get a blood test done and never, NEVER trust Dumbledore. He is not what he seems. I close this letter with a heavy heart as you were my son all in but blood and flesh.

Hoping you could forgive both my husband and myself for our actions.

Sincerely yours,

Lily Mary Potter

A/N: And here's a new update folks! Hopefully the length of it will serve as a compensation to my tardiness when it comes to updating things. Hope you enjoy! Also a big thanks to all those who have read, reviewed, favorited or followed my story. It seriously is a great inspiration to me that there are people out there who take their time to read my story. Ok, sentimental stuff aside, Read and Review!