AN:

I'm sorry for the long wait for an update. I received a very negative message after uploading my last chapter basically saying my writing is awful and my story sucks. I understand everyone is allowed an opinion and that my writing isn't of the highest quality, however that message kind of hit my confidence hard and I just kept going through and deleting everything I had written for this chapter, on several occasions. I had to force myself not to delete this version of the chapter too, since I don't think it is very good, however I made myself upload this in the end just with the mindset that even if some people dislike my work, some people will enjoy it, and ultimately, I started writing this story for myself since I thought it would be a fun thing to do. I do want to say a big thank you to everyone who has left a positive or constructive review on the story so far; your comments have been really helpful to read.

Anyway, sorry for waffling and I hope you enjoy the update :)

Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter; all rights and characters belong to JK Rowling.

Chapter 6 – Christmas

Harry grinned widely as he and Sirius tucked into large Christmas themed ice creams outside of Florean Fortescue's parlour. It was Christmas Eve and Diagon Alley was covered in a thin layer of snow, with more snow gently falling onto the cobbled streets below as shoppers rushed about buying last-minute presents for loved ones. Honestly, it was not what many would consider the perfect weather to eat ice cream, but visiting Florean Fortescue's parlour had become one of Sirius and Harry's favourite things to do, and when a hot brownie is being served with the ice cream, enjoying it becomes a lot more understandable in such cold weather.

The time since Harry had last visited Diagon Alley had flown past in a blur for him. He had continued learning occlumency under Sirius' guidance, and Sirius had started to teach him the basics of magical history and potions too (even if his godfather insisted that he was the worst possible potions tutor Harry could have). As well as this, Harry had made quick work of all of the books Sirius had bought for him, and read each of them several times through at an alarmingly quick rate, meaning that another trip to Diagon Alley was required for more reading material. Since then, coming to the Alley had become a regular occurrence, sometimes two to three times a week, with Sirius buying Harry a new book to read each time they came. Harry tried to turn down his generosity at first, but Sirius had insisted, saying that his family's immense fortune 'had to be spent on something', although at the rate Harry was going, 'he would go bankrupt in a couple months' time'.

In their trips to the Alley, they had made friends with both Tom the innkeeper of the Leaky Cauldron, and Florean Fortescue; the ice cream parlour owner in particular was very kind to Harry, often telling him funny stories and sometimes even letting him eat free due to the regular business they gave him anyway.

One other person that Harry couldn't help but take notice of was the girl he had noticed leaving Knockturn Alley in his first trip there. Like Harry and Sirius, she seemed to be a regular visitor of Diagon Alley – in fact, Harry had only not spotted her on one occasion out of all of their days spent in the wizarding street. Again like Harry, her favourite shop seemed to be Flourish and Blotts, where she would spend hours at a time sitting stiffly in the corner, poring over different books, before paying the shopkeeper and leaving the alley with the books she bought. Since he saw her exit Knockturn Alley that first time, he had only seen her venture down there once. He had seen her pull her hood up and enter, then he had seen her leave the alley no more than five minutes later with no proof of any purchases. This intrigued Harry: why on earth would she go somewhere renowned as dangerous if not to buy anything down there. Harry had attempted to build up the courage to go over to her and ask her that several times whilst they were both in Flourish and Blotts, but he hadn't managed to yet. He didn't have much experience talking to people as it was – he never had any friends back in Little Whinging, and he still had a tough time reminding himself he didn't have to abide by the Dursleys' rule of not asking questions any more. Sirius had noticed Harry glancing over at the girl curiously every now and then, so obviously hadn't missed the opportunity to tease Harry about the mysterious girl who read even more than he did.

"Enjoying it?" Sirius asked, breaking Harry out of his chain of thought.

"Yeah," Harry nodded happily, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it, pup" replied Sirius, ruffling Harry's hair and causing the boys grin to get wider. Sirius had recently taken to calling Harry that, and Harry had to admit he quite liked it. It was nice to be called an endearing nickname, as opposed to 'Boy' or 'Freak' for a change.

A couple minutes later, after Harry had finally finished his ice cream, the two of them were once again entering Flourish and Blotts. Sirius usually let Harry free roam round the bookstore whilst he either talked to the shopkeeper or browsed the shelves himself, however before Harry could run off and begin searching the bookshelves for more reading material, Sirius placed a hand on his shoulder, halting him in his tracks.

"Woah, slow down there pup," he teased, "The books aren't gonna run away!" Anyway, I've got something I need to do down the Alley, so take these." He dropped a stack of coins (both silver sickles and golden galleons) into Harry's hand, "I'll be back in about ten minutes, don't go anywhere." With that, the older man grinned widely and left the shop. Harry rolled his eyes with a smile. He had no idea what business Sirius had to take care of but whatever it was, his godfather was clearly excited about it. Harry shook the thought out of his head and immediately got to work choosing what book he was going to buy. Sirius had dropped him a bit more money than Harry thought he would need, so maybe he would even be able to buy two books to read over Christmas.

Harry began to scan through the shelves, his eyes searching for something new and exciting to discover about the magical world – so far he had read books on magical creatures, magical plants, quidditch, Hogwarts, occlumency, potions, spells, and magical history – and it was fair to say he found some subjects far more interesting than others. He found occlumency and herbology particularly dull to read about, and reading about spells without being able to attempt casting them wasn't very exciting either. On the other hand, Harry really enjoyed reading about magical creatures and about Hogwarts. Harry was really nervous about when he turned eleven and would have to go to Hogwarts: Sirius' warnings about the headmaster Albus Dumbledore most likely having worrying plans for him was concerning enough, but Harry was also worried about his fame. When Sirius explained to Harry that he was famous, Harry believed him but didn't quite understand the scale of just how famous he was until they started regularly going to Diagon Alley. Since then, Harry had began to notice his name cropping up in random wizards' conversations, and also in the bookshelves of Flourish and Blotts. Not only had his name been mentioned in a couple of the magical history books Harry had read, but in the kids' section of the store, there were some adventure novels using his name as the main character of the story. This in itself didn't bother Harry much, however what did concern him was if children did read these and thought Harry grew up fighting dark wizards and dragons, he was bound to be even more famous when he joined Hogwarts, and the students would likely have lots of misconceptions about him and his life. Most of all, Harry was concerned about how this would affect his ability to make friends there which he could truly trust weren't just being his friends because he was famous. While living at the Dursley's, Harry had become quite used to having no friends, and resigned to the fact this would likely never change. However, since Sirius had rescued him, he had told Harry so many stories about what him and his friends, known as the Marauders, had got up to whilst at Hogwarts, and this had made Harry desperate for some friends of his own; but they had to be ones he could be certain weren't friends with him due to his fame, and weren't untrustworthy cowards like Pettigrew. Even despite these worries, Harry was still excited to go to Hogwarts, because he couldn't wait to have adventures like his dad and Sirius had had, and he wanted to meet some wizards and witches his age. He hoped they were very different to the muggles from his primary school.

Speaking of witches and wizards his age, the mysterious blonde girl was in her usual spot in the corner of the bookstore, not moving a muscle and clearly concentrating deeply on whatever she was reading. Harry regarded her for a moment, noticing how her eyebrows were furrowed as she focussed on her book, and how she managed to sit completely still yet with perfect posture the whole time. Suddenly, and with no warning and causing Harry to jump, the girl slammed her book shut and rose gracefully to her feet before approaching the book shop owner. Harry forced himself to look away and begin browsing the bookshelves once more, however before long, the conversation between the owner and the girl captured his attention.

"Four galleons?" he heard the girl question in a blank tone of voice, with an undertone of worry.

"Yes, it is one of our more expensive books. Are you sure you want to purchase this? It is quite an advanced book."

"I'm sure," replied the girl icily, before her voice became emotionless, "Can you keep it to one side whilst I go fetch two more galleons?"

"I can, but we're just about to close up, so you might have to wait until the 27th to buy it, since we're closed tomorrow and boxing day."

The girl scowled in annoyance started to storm off but before Harry could stop himself, he stopped her in her tracks by shouting, "Wait!"

The blonde girl and the owner of the shop both turned to look at him in surprise and then some growing confusion when he didn't say anything else. Realising he needed to speak again, Harry said, "I'll pay for it."

The man and girl alike both stared at him incredulously, but the owner didn't protest as Harry placed all four of the galleons that Sirius had given him down on the counter. Seeing the other two people in the shop were still staring at him in confusion, Harry picked up the book, walked over to the exit, and handed it to the girl. At this, she shook herself out of her stupor and accepted the book, now looking at Harry suspiciously. Unable to handle the awkward atmosphere in the shop, and having now spent most of the money Sirius gave him, Harry left the store to wait for Sirius outside instead.

However, the girl swiftly followed him out and he immediately found himself to be the subject of another suspicious glare. "Why did you do that?" she asked fiercely, "What are you trying to get in return?"

Harry shrunk back in surprise; he didn't expect her to be angry!

"I'm not trying to get anything in return. You just seemed annoyed you couldn't get the book and Si– Dad says he has too much money anyway and that it needs to be spent on something."

This seemed to do nothing to remove the girl's confusion however the look of anger on her face had faded back to the unreadable expression she usually seemed to wear. Harry glanced down at the book to see what it was he had just spent four galleons on and what was one of Flourish and Blotts' 'more expensive books' as the owner put it. It read Guide to Advanced Occlumency.

"Hey, I know about occlumency, but I'm not very advanced at it," said Harry, motioning towards the book.

The girl narrowed her eyes at him and moved the book closer to her body as if to hide it from him. "What do you want?" she asked him again.

"I – nothing – I just – how come you're already advanced at occlumency? Dad said it's almost impossible to get too advanced at it until you're at least twelve or thirteen. Wait – is that what you were doing in Knockturn Alley?"

The blonde girl's expression got more and more guarded as Harry spoke, then when he mentioned Knockturn Alley, her eyes widened in surprise, before she turned a furious glare his way.

"It's none of your business! Stop watching me and don't ever do something like that again!" she spoke threateningly, before storming off down the street.

Harry stood there in stunned silence after her outburst, watching her back as she swiftly made her way back towards the Leaky Cauldron. In hindsight, maybe bringing up the fact she had been to Knockturn Alley wasn't the greatest idea, since it gave her the idea that Harry had been stalking her, or at least watching her movements closely – which Harry had to admit he had been doing ever since he saw her walk out of Knockturn Alley the first time. Well, if that's how he handled an interaction with a witch or wizard his age, maybe he'd be no better at making friends in the wizarding world than he was in the muggle world – even without the threat of getting beaten up by Dudley's gang hanging over the heads of anyone who wanted to talk to Harry.

Whilst Harry could see why she had stormed off after he mentioned seeing her going into Knockturn Alley, he still didn't understand why she'd been so angry at him for buying her the book. The way she had demanded to know what he wanted in return was concerning too, and made Harry wonder just what kind of people were in the magical world if a small act of kindness seemed so foreign to her. Then again, it's not like Harry experienced much kindness in the muggle world either, he just expected the magical world to be far better than the muggle world in this way; everyone he'd met so far had been a lot nicer than anyone he had met in the muggle world however he knew from Sirius that the magical world had its fair share of horrible, selfish people too. Another thing which Harry noticed about the girl is that she constantly tried to school her features into an emotionless expression, although she did have some slip-ups when anger and surprise slipped through. This reminded Harry of his life at 4 Privet Drive: he would always try to keep his face completely blank around the Dursleys, so they never thought he was having a good time, or complaining and feeling sorry for himself – either of those would have resulted in a list of chores to do, or a beating. Like this girl though, Harry was prone to his mask slipping sometimes and his emotion shining through. Regardless, this girl intrigued Harry, and he wanted to find out more about her.

As he stood out in the street mulling these thoughts over in his head, Sirius had returned and was now regarding him curiously.

"Any reason you're stood out here without any books?" his godfather asked curiously.

"I lost the galleons you gave me," Harry lied meekly, not quite sure why he didn't just tell Sirius what had happened, "I'm sorry."

"I see." Sirius cocked an eyebrow as if to show Harry he didn't believe him but would drop the subject at least for now. "Well I'd offer to go in with you and get a book now, but I just spent all the money I had on me on your surprise for tomorrow."

This got Harry's attention as he tried to brainstorm what Sirius might have bought for him, however then a thought came into his head.

"I – I don't have any money left to buy a gift for you," he said dejectedly, feeling extremely guilty.

Sirius placed a hand on Harry's shoulder and gave it a gentle and reassuring squeeze. "I don't need a present from you, all I need is for you to be happy. Besides, I've got eight years' worth of birthdays and Christmases to make up for, I better get started now! Come on, let's go home."

-o0o-

Harry woke up and rolled out of bed the next morning feeling, for the first time in his life, excited it was Christmas Day. With the Dursleys, all this time of year meant was another day to spoil Dudley on, and often a visit from his 'Aunt Marge'. Marge Dursley was his Uncle Vernon's sister and Harry would go as far as to say she was just as bad as Vernon, if not worse. After she visited, Harry would always be left behind souvenirs as reminders of her coming over, most often in the form of numerous bruises and painful dog bites.

But this year was different. There would be no Aunt Marge, no Dursleys in general, no getting locked in his cupboard whilst everyone else enjoyed the day, and the only dog in sight would be Sirius if he transformed. And on top of that, Sirius had told him yesterday that he had bought Harry a gift, and Harry suspected that whatever it was, it would be better than the box of dog biscuits Aunt Marge had brought round for him last Christmas.

As he made his way downstairs, Harry noticed the cabin had been decorated to look festive with tinsel, holly, and most noticeably a giant Christmas tree in the middle of the living room. Also in the living room, sat a big black dog with a Santa hat on its head, covering its ears. Harry laughed as he took in that sight before Sirius transformed back into his human form and joined in the laughter.

"Merry Christmas, pup!" his godfather said cheerfully.

"Merry Christmas," responded Harry, barely keeping the excitement out of his voice.

"Kreacher's just making breakfast in the kitchen," Sirius explained, "Once we've eaten, I can bring you your present!" The man looked extremely excited at the prospect of giving Harry his first proper gift since he was one year old.

No sooner had Sirius finished speaking that Kreacher popped into the room with plates loaded with sausages, bacon, toast, and egg for both Harry and Sirius. Before he could leave however, Sirius invited him to stay and eat some breakfast with them. The house elf's eyes started to fill up with tears and he tried to reject the offer, but Sirius insisted, transfiguring Kreacher a small plate and moving some of his bacon and sausage onto it for the elf, which he hesitantly began to eat. Harry smiled at the heart-warming scene. He knew his godfather and the Black family house elf didn't share the most pleasant of histories, but recently Kreacher had been significantly warmer towards Sirius, and the two had spent a lot of time together, particularly when working on their project which Harry wasn't allowed to know about.

As they ate and talked, Sirius got gradually more and more excited, then as soon as he had cleaned his plate, he darted out of the room to fetch his gift for Harry. Harry wondered what kind of gift Sirius would be this enthusiastic about giving to Harry, but he didn't have to wait long. He looked up as Sirius' giant dog form came bounding into the room, wagging its tail, but that wasn't what stole Harry's attention. In Sirius' canine mouth, was a broomstick! Harry had wanted a broomstick ever since he heard all of Sirius' stories about Harry's father's flying skills, and now he had one!

Sirius dropped the broom in his godson's lap, then transformed back into his human form, with a giant grin lighting up his features at seeing Harry's expression of happiness as he gazed at the broomstick.

"Like it?" teased Sirius. "I saw you looking at them in Diagon Alley and I knew you would want one but be too shy to ask for one! This is a Cleansweep Seven. It's not the fastest broom on the market, but it's very reliable and a good broom to learn on," he explained.

"Thank you," said Harry sincerely, "I still wish I could have got you something as well."

Sirius waved Harry's concern away, "Nonsense! Besides, I bought myself one of them too, so now we can go flying together as long as we're careful not to be seen!" Harry's smile got even wider at hearing that.

For the next couple of hours, Sirius and Harry flew together. At first, Sirius attempted to teach Harry the basics of flying, but as it turned out, Harry was a natural, so they could move straight to simply flying around and having fun. That's what they did at first, with Harry relishing just how amazing it felt to be flying through the cold winter air with his godfather at his side – never in his life had he felt so free. After a while, Sirius decided to test Harry's quidditch skills by grabbing a quaffle he had also bought the previous day and starting to play catch with him. They very quickly discovered that Harry was quite good at catching the quaffle, but didn't have a very strong throw at all. From there, Sirius shrunk the ball and just started to throw it in different angles and at various speeds, with Harry having to catch it. Surprisingly (to Harry himself at least) he performed quite well, catching all but a few of Sirius' throws, and feeling delighted that he had found something he was good at. Sirius loudly stated that Harry would make a great seeker one day, and that James would be jealous but so proud of how good a flyer his son was from only a few hours of practice.

The rest of the day flew by in a blur for Harry, with the highlight being the delicious Christmas dinner which Kreacher cooked up. Harry decided he much preferred eating a Christmas dinner to watching everybody else eat and then having to clean up after them, with only the leftovers as his meal for the day. The evening found Sirius enthusiastically regaling Harry with story after story about the Christmases he'd celebrated at Hogwarts, the snowball fights they'd instigated on the grounds, and the lengthy plot the Marauders had devised in fifth year which culminated in James and Lily ending up under the mistletoe, and James ending up with a sore face from being slapped. The laughs had recently dried up now, with both godfather and godson sitting in a comfortable silence, immersed in their own thoughts.

After hearing yet another story about his parents, how infatuated his dad was with his mum, and how they eventually fell in love, Harry was thinking about exactly that: love. From reading books and his time in primary school, Harry knew that when two people were in love, they supposedly spent lots of time together, got married, had children, and lived happily ever after. Yet Harry still wasn't sure he understood it. The only married couple Harry had ever been able to see interact on a regular basis was his Uncle Vernon and his Aunt Petunia. In theory, this would mean that because they got married, the two must have been in love. However, his uncle and aunt certainly didn't give off the signs of being in love like they supposedly should have. The two of them rarely spent time together, they weren't affectionate towards one another, and one of the only things they seemed to have in common was a fierce hatred of Harry. In Harry's opinion, if that's what love is, then maybe it's not all it's cracked up to be.

On the other hand, the single other example of a married couple in Harry's life was his parents. Assessing their relationship was obviously a lot more difficult seeing as he never knew them, therefore he would have to take Sirius' word for all information he got on his parents. So, according to his godfather, his father had always been enamoured with his mother, however his mother hadn't returned the feelings at first, due to his father's immaturity and his long-standing feud with Severus Snape, who was his mother's friend. Then, in their later years at Hogwarts, Harry's father started to mature, and his mother ended her friendship with Snape due to a fight they had which she had apparently not shared the details of to Sirius. Some time after that, in their seventh year, his mother finally started to return the feelings and they started dating, becoming 'almost inseparable' as Sirius put it. Their relationship continued once they left school, and they joined the Order of the Phoenix together, which was a vigilante group designed to fight death eaters, very badly led by Albus Dumbledore according to Sirius. During this time, they also got married, then when his mother fell pregnant, they went into hiding. After Harry was born, their relationship stayed strong as they raised him for a year and three months, before that fateful night when Harry lost both of his parents.

So, in terms of love, his parents seemed a much better example than the Dursleys. Going off the words of his godfather, they were 'made for each other', happy together and completely in love. The one piece of the jigsaw they were missing from the perfect love story was the happy ending. Quite honestly, Harry wasn't too sure what he was trying to figure out about love. Judging purely from his life, it seemed love was rare, and even when it was true, it definitely didn't come attached with a happy ending.

Shaking the deep thoughts out of his head, Harry turned his attention back to the man who had turned his life around recently, but he was shocked to see Sirius was sat there completely still with a solitary tear trickling down his cheek, and a heartbroken look on his face. The man was quick to wipe away the tear, but then his eyes widened as he saw his godson was staring at him with wide eyes full of worry. Sirius tried to quickly replace the forlorn look on his face with a smile, however it ended up looking like more of a grimace. "What's up, pup?" he asked, clearly trying to keep his voice light, but again failing.

"Are you okay?" Harry inquired, ignoring Sirius' distraction technique.

"Yeah of course I am, don't worry about me," Sirius replied, his voice a bit more convincing this time.

"Why were you crying?" asked a still completely unconvinced Harry. Seeing his godson wasn't about to back down, Sirius finally gave in with a sigh.

"I was just thinking about people. You know, like James and Lily, and Remus – I have loads of memories of spending Christmas with them, so I guess they all just kind of hit me hard all of a sudden." Sirius took another deep breath. "And then there's Frank and Alice – Longbottom that is. They were friends of mine from the Order and I always assumed they made it since the war kind of ended on the day I was sent to Azkaban, and they were fine then. But I was reading one of the old newspapers in Flourish and Blotts and it turns out they were tortured to the point of insanity by some Death Eaters, including my psycho cousin. I just wonder how many families were tore apart by the war – by Dumbledore almost as much as the Death Eaters. I'll never forget how Gideon and Fabian Prewett died. They were Order members with your parents and I too; really good men. At the time, the Ministry had made it legal for Aurors to use lethal force against the Death Eaters, including casting the Unforgiveable Curses on them." At Harry's confused look, Sirius added, "I'll explain them later."

"Despite this new law though, Dumbledore insisted that on missions for the Order, the aim was always to stun and capture the Death Eaters for questioning and to be arrested and he forbade outright killing the Death Eaters because 'everyone deserved second chances' and killing would mean we would be 'no better than the people we are fighting'. That was obviously a load of crap – killing in self-defence and even killing monsters like that in general should be applauded in my eyes. Anyway, Dumbledore sent the Prewetts into a literal death trap just to serve as a distraction from a raid we were doing on a known Death Eater base. Dumbledore promised us they would be fine and had emergency portkeys to escape, but for one reason or another they never were; part of me wonders whether that was Dumbledore's doing as well, to buy us extra time in our raid. It turned out the Death Eaters were tipped off about our plans and their base was completely empty – definitely the rat's fault – so a few of us rushed to where Gideon and Fabian were sent, but we arrived just in time to see them taken down by five Death Eaters. We managed to capture a couple of them, mainly thanks to Mad-Eye Moody, but the rest escaped. The worst thing is, after this whole fiasco, Dumbledore still insisted we shouldn't use lethal force, and somehow he managed to convince most of us to completely change our minds and back him up.

"Sorry I shouldn't be laying all of this on you, you're only nine. I just worry that one day you'll get dragged into all of this because I don't think Voldemort is dead. I've read all the papers after he disappeared that night, and there was no body, no evidence he died, and Dumbledore was quoted in the paper saying that he believed Voldemort was 'not truly defeated'. Also, once in a battle we were involved in, Voldemort claimed he had taken steps beyond anyone else in history to ensure his immortality. And if he's not dead, one of the first things he would do when he returned would most likely be to hunt you down, because he'll want to know how you managed to survive his curse. I really wish I didn't have to be the person to tell you this, and that I didn't have to tell you this early, but I know from experience that keeping things from people only hurts them and makes them angry in the long run. Plus, the longer you know about something for, the longer you have to prepare for it, and I'll be damned if I let you face all of this alone and unprepared.

"The one thing that worries me even more than all this is Dumbledore. We know how much he loves to meddle in things, and I'm one hundred percent certain he has plans for you. I don't know what these plans are, but for some reason they involved having you grow up abused and underfed with those pathetic excuses for an aunt and uncle. What I do know about Dumbledore is he knows more about Voldemort than possibly anyone else on the planet, and I get the feeling there's more connecting you and Voldemort than we know, and I'm certain Dumbledore will try to use you as he sees fit if and when Voldemort returns."

Harry sat stunned into silence as Sirius' avalanche of information started to sink in. Sirius had mentioned that Dumbledore and some others suspected Lord Voldemort hadn't died and would return before, however hearing Sirius tell him that finding Harry would be the evil wizard's first priority after returning – quite frankly it scared Harry.

Then there was the frequent warnings about this Dumbledore and his 'plans' he will have set in place for Harry. These scared Harry almost as much as the threat of Voldemort returning and seeking him out, because as Sirius had explained, Dumbledore had no qualms about using people as pawns to achieve his greater goals. From the way Sirius had told him about the wizarding war, it was easy to tell Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters were the bad guys, so that meant Dumbledore was effectively in charge of the good guys' side in the war – so why did he sound a lot like a bad guy himself. Harry broke the silence to ask exactly this, before focussing his attention back on his godfather for an answer.

"Because Harry, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. If it were, the war certainly would have been a whole lot simpler."

Harry mulled those words over for a while. "But, if Voldemort returned and another war happened, wouldn't we have to be on the same side as Dumbledore?"

Sirius only took a moment before answering, "No. The side against the Death Eaters was led by Dumbledore last time, and it did more harm than good. If another war were to break out, we'd be on our own side. Being a pawn to Dumbledore could be one of the most dangerous things for you considering how much he's affected your life already. He's clearly trying to set you up for something, and I worry his purpose of keeping you with those muggles was to keep you weak, only I don't know why he would do that. Regardless, we won't ever allow that to happen. The only thing that matters for us to stay alive and stay safe, not take part in some awful game of chess between Dumbledore and Voldemort. All we need on our side is you and me."

Harry smiled at that sentiment, but it faded once more as he thought about everything else Sirius had said. It can never be a good thing to have the two most powerful wizards alive both plotting your death in one way or another. Honestly, it felt to Harry like his life was definitely never destined to be an easy one. First he had the Dursleys to deal with, but now it seemed as if the whole wizarding world would at least have some sort of expectations for him, with more than a few of them already wanting him dead.

In that moment Harry decided one thing. He would never let these people control his life like the Dursleys did – he would make sure he gets strong enough to always be in control of his own destiny, and with Sirius by his side, he would at least never be completely alone.