18th of June 1994

Harry was smiling internally at the scowl on his uncles face, he'd been doing it frequently as they drove back to Little Whinging. Harry knew the reason for it, after all he'd been the cause, or rather the news that he had a godfather named Sirius Black who was a convicted murderer in the Wizarding World and that he'd be checking on Harry randomly at unannounced times. Arriving at Number Four Privet Drive, Vernon got of the car and said, "Boy, get your things out of boot, take them to your room. You'll stay there unless you need to do something, like going out to do whatever, and if you do, unless you absolutely need to, leave me and my family alone."

Somewhat shocked and surprised that his uncle hadn't started shouting and moaning about freak convicted murderers, forcing him to do things once they went got inside, he was pleasantly surprised that all his uncle wanted was to be left alone. With no slaving over the Dursleys and the prospect of a visit from Sirius this summer was looking to be a best one yet.

Entering his room he was excited to see a letter on his bed with his name on it, a small hand mirror under it and a small three inch by three inch package next to them. Opening the letter first he was curious to see only a single written line that read, Harry, hold the mirror in your hand and call out Padfoot! Not knowing what else to do, Harry picked up hand mirror and did just that, "Padfoot!"

As Harry finished calling the name out, an image of Sirius Black appeared in the mirror, and, to Harry's surprise, started talking. "Hi Harry, how are you doing?"

"Sirius," Harry said happily, "It's great to see you, I'm fine. What about you and Buckbeak, how are you two doing? Where are you?"

"We're both fine Harry," said Sirius, and then with a smirk he said, "How do you like my gift to you?"

"Oh you mean the package?" Harry asked, "I haven't opened it yet."

"No not that gift, but we'll get to that in a moment," Sirius said, "But the other gift I left for you."

Harry had to wonder what Sirius meant; what other gift? He also had to think about how he got these things in his room… then it hit him, the sudden change in his uncle, telling him that more or less he could do whatever he liked as long as he stayed out of his and his family way. "You did something to my uncle and aunt, didn't you?" asked Harry.

Yeah," Sirius said with a sly smile, "When I last saw you, you were worryingly underweight and small for your age, so I thought I would check on your home life," To which Harry muttered that it 'wasn't his home', "I don't blame you after meeting them, and here I thought my family were bad. Anyway, I placed a few spells on your whole family so that they'll leave you alone for the summer." Sirius gained a thoughtful expression before saying, "Now, before I let you tear into the package so I can explain what in it, I need to ask you something; who are you? I mean who are you really?"

Confused by the question, he ran it round in his mind why wouldn't he know who he was, he was his own person after all, so he should know who he was. "I don't know what you're talking about Sirius, I know who I am; I'm Harry James Potter."

"I don't mean your name Harry," Sirius said seriously, "I mean, do you know who you are as a person?"

Even more confused by the question, he didn't know what Sirius meant, so he voiced his confusion, "Sirius, I'm not too sure what you mean by do I know who I am as a person."

"In that case, I'll tell you," Sirius said, "First off; you're the Boy-Who-Lived," Seeing Harry about to interrupt him, but he stopped him with a look, "I know you don't like it, but as the Boy-Who-Lived you're a celebrity and I know you would prefer not to be as you parents were killed," Sirius saw Harry about to say interrupt him again steam rolled on, "It's morbid, I know, but in our world you're a celebrity and with that you have power to influence people in the Wizarding World. Add the fact that at the moment as the Potter Heir you've got some political power as well and a perceived standing in the world…"

He trailed off meaningfully. The significance of this ended up flying right over Harry's head though, "What do you mean by Potter Heir?" Harry asked, still horribly confused.

"Damn you Dumbledore," Harry heard Sirius mutter, "Dumbledore was supposed to have told you all this Harry. You see, when you turn fifteen you'll turn from Potter the heir, into Lord Potter of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter. There are several things this means but the most important are that you'll gain some political power within the Wizengamot, with the ability to change laws and judge certain trials. People will also start to come to trying to curie your favor, or asked for favors in exchange for future deals/help etc." Pausing for breath and to allow it to sink in he waited for a couple of seconds before asking, "Do understand what being privileged means?"

"I've got a rough idea," Harry admitted, "but what has this got to do with the package?"

"What I mean is people respect you, and, whether or not they show it, they fear you." Sirius said in a matter of fact tone of voice. "At the age of one you defeated the Dark Lord and if the rumours going round are true, which doesn't really matter to some people if they are or not, you faced the Dark Lord again in your first year and defeated him, and in turn stopped him getting philosopher's stone. Then in your second year you're rumoured to have killed a sixty something foot Basilisk," At this, Sirius saw the grimace on Harry's face, "It's true then, isn't it? They aren't just rumours, you really did all these things?" Harry nodded, causing Sirius to sneer before once again cursing, "Damned Dumbledore, he was meant to protect you!"

Sirius seethed for a few seconds before he took a calming breath. "Anyway, you know what happened about a week ago when you saved me, so I won't get into it. But the thing is that you're trying to parade around the fact that that you're this quiet, content kid just trying to fit into the Wizarding World. Harry do you think that if someone else had done everything you've done they would fit into society normally?" Sirius asked, "No matter how much you try Harry, you won't fit in, you're not normal, yet you seem content to ignore all of the ways you could make your life better." Seeing his godson's concerned face, Sirius said, "Privilege doesn't make people bad, they make themselves bad. There's nothing wrong with using what happened to you to make your life better, all your doing at the moment is allowing people to shovel their shit at you and then eating it gratefully. You need to grow a spine Harry, man up and take control of your life or you'll be eating shit for the rest of your life. That's where the package comes in," Sirius said with a smirk, "It will help you stand up for yourself and do whatever you want to do with your life, now open the package, tap your wand on it and say, 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good' and the package well change into a big box with a few things that'll help you."

Harry considered what Sirius had said, he had to agree with the assessment of his life, he coasted, going with the flow of whatever was going on around him blending into the background as much as he could. He allowed others to make decisions for him, be it Hermione telling him to study or Ron helping him to have fun. Thinking about why he never applied or asserted himself, he supposed it was to do with his upbringing. He'd always had to do worse than Dudley otherwise he would be punished. That was no longer the case however, he could now study and do his best at Hogwarts, as it was unlikely that his family would really care how well he was doing, so long as they could pretend magic didn't exist they wouldn't care about anything he did.

With his reasoning complete, he promised himself to be more assertive and confidant and hoped that whatever Sirius had given him would allow him to help himself. If it did he would devoured it, metaphorically or literally depending on what it was and he was going to use to however he damn well pleased. If it was a lighter he was going to light some of Dudley's porn magazines on fire, if it was something incredibly irresponsible, he was going to act like a child and have a lovely time doing it, and if it was something serious (and not Sirius, because he'd already covered childish things) then he was going to master it as quickly as possible and maybe even teach his friends so he could repay them somehow for all they'd done for him over the years.

In short, he was going to stop drifting down the river of life and build a boat to drive down it, or, failing that, steal one and speed off down it. Regardless of the analogy he used, he was going to start doing and experiencing things he wanted. To begin with he was going start doing better in his classes and not slack off, he wanted to make his parents proud and doing well in school would make at least his mum proud from what he knew about them. Doing well in school would set him up for the future, and as much as he didn't like thinking of the future because it normal involved going back to the Dursely's, he knew he really needed to start thinking about it, especially if people were going to start coming to him for answers or help. He also need to think about Voldemort as each time there'd meet he'd ended up killing him in one form or another, a school education and luck had kept him alive so far but it wouldn't keep him alive forever. What it would do is maybe let him get away to fight another day.

Thinking about the subjects he was studying at Hogwarts he couldn't understand why he'd not picked Arithmancy, he liked maths, mostly because he could do it in his head as much as he liked without fear of his aunt, uncle or cousin insulting him about it. So next year if he could he would sign up for it, even if he was a year behind he was sure Hermione would help him get caught up and it would allow him to drop Divination. As for the other elective subjects he had no reason to take muggle studies, hell he probably knew more about muggles than the teacher, runes however could be interesting. He hadn't taken it originally because he had wanted a light work load but he didn't really have a reason not to try it, so why not? Maybe he'd have a talent for it? If not, he could always drop it and be happy knowing he at least tried it. Although from what Hermione told him, runes were good to know for wards and rituals. There was also a myth about a specialized for of magic aptly named Rune Magic, which unlike present day runes which were only used for ward and rituals, they could also apparently be used for elemental spells and other arcane and awe inspiring feats. Transmutation being the most well known.

Shaking these thoughts out of his mind for now, Harry looked at the package sitting on his bed and picked it up. Then pulling his wand from his pocket he tapped the box, saying, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." For a few moments nothing seemed to happen but then the box begun to grow. It ballooned up to around a foot and a half by a foot and a half by three foot in length. As Harry looked closer, he saw it had many drawers on every side, all of various sizes. On the top of the box, in the middle, was a crest on it. The crest was of a forest, and on it were three animals: a stag, a grim and a werewolf playing together.

"Harry I need to ask you something before you open the drawers," Sirius interrupted before Harry could open one of the panels, "Whilst I was at Hogwarts I heard many things, one of these things is that you were stupid, lazy as fuck and only really good at Defence. I want to know is this true? I can't think that a son of James and Lily would be like this."

Feeling slightly ashamed Harry answered, "Stupid, no, although I might come across that way. Lazy? Yes. There's no real way to sugar coat it, I am, or should I say, I was . You saw my relatives, if I ever did better than Dudley I would have been punished. So I stopped trying, why do well when all that ever happening is that you get belittled for it? I just got into the habit of doing well enough not to get in trouble but not too well to show up Dudley. I hadn't really realized 'til you started asking questions that I was doing the same thing at Hogwarts, for the first time in years I'm going to be able to be myself and not have to worry the consequences." Harry said passionately.

"Damn those Dursley's, if I'd known -" Sirius muttered to himself as he drifted off, but with a sigh of relief, "But I'm glad to hear that though Harry. I really didn't want to have to come back over there and slap you until you woke up and started smelling the opportunity you've been handed." Harry really wasn't sure if Sirius was joking or not but he still appreciated an adult that wasn't being entirely unhelpful and was actually doing something to make his life better.

Seeing his Godfathers expectant face Harry pulled out the first of the four drawers. It was long and lined with felt, inside it held various coloured potions. "What're these?" Harry asked, picking up a red potion.

Sirius grinned, as if he was in on an inside joke. "When you get stuck in Azkaban, as Death Eaters tend to on occasion, well when the magical justice system doesn't get blinded by gold anyway, they tend to get pretty sickly looking. The red potions were invented to restore the body to its peak condition for the drinker's current age. I think that you, the defeater of You-Know-Who, benefiting as much as you will from these is a great prank on the bigots. They actually act like the Elixir of Life, only they take about thirty days to fully work, instead of a few minutes, and they don't de-age you. The blue potions help build up muscle, something the red potions don't do, but they only help build up muscle, it just makes exercise more effective so you'll need to exercise for an hour or so every morning after taking it. The yellow ones are pepper-up potions, they'll help you when you run out of energy so you can keep going." Sirius instructed.

"And the… tan ones?" Harry asked, giving a pause as he decided what shade of light brown the potion was.

"That one requires a bit of explanation. You know about what Animagus are and what they can do?" Seeing Harry's nod he continued with a small hint of pride, "Well the process to becoming one is incredibly easy... if you're an American Indian." He said dryly, "You see, although they didn't discovered how to become an Animagus, they were the ones who perfected it. Now the British Ministry of Magic, in all its wisdom decided that having every person under their rule with the ability to transform into an animal would make hiding from the law rather easy and be incredibly impractical. So instead of improving themselves and making various spells to catch them, they did the arguably more lazy thing and gathered up every book that had the correct potion ingredients and discouraged the teaching of anything that wasn't the ministry approved 'improved' version of the potion. So the Animagus Potion that the British uses can only give you fuzzy images of what the species your form is, and from there you need to research and meditate to find what their form really was. However, with the American potion, you'll gain a clear vision of what your form, or forms, will be. Yes plural, if you're as powerful as I think you are, you could gain more than one form. If you should have more than one form, your first will likely take about a month to master and your second form, will take about half as long as that, because you'll already have a good idea of what you're doing. However, should you have a powerful form like a dragon or phoenix, it'll take even longer to gain full control, as they need more power. This potion is best to be taken before you go to bed."

Harry was stunned, and moved that his Godfather would go to such lengths to help him. "Sirius… thank you." He said thickly.

"Man up Harry! You're acting like a little bitch." Sirius replied, but his expression softened and a warm smile played across his face, "I'm kidding, thank you, but I'm your Godfather; one that failed you horribly after your parents…" He paused, the subject still too painful, "I should have told Hagrid to bugger off and raised you but I'm not a Ravenclaw or even the least bit Slytherin unless I have a year or two sitting alone to plan things out." He admitted before moving on quickly. "You haven't opened the rest of your things though."

Harry opened the second panel, it was much smaller and inside was what appeared to be a cube. He picked it up but Sirius beat him to the punch, "That Harry, is a Wizarding Tent, when you throw in a clear area and it hits the ground at a certain speed, it'll open up. I wouldn't do it in your room as I doubt it would fit, I would open it in the forest I saw near your house." He said as he saw what Harry was about to do.

"Now unlike a Muggle tent, where normally you have enough room for about three people to sleep in, a Wizarding Tent is much bigger on the inside often having many rooms within it." Sirius explained to Harry. "This tent in particular is the top of the market, there are three bedrooms, two of them have got four normal size beds. The other bedroom is the Master Bedroom and has a king size bed, a bedside cupboard and a wardrobe, I left how it'll look up to you. It also contains a kitchen, which is stocked with enough food to feed you for several years and it also contains a bathroom, with a large bath, big enough for at least five people or seven if you were very friendly," Sirius said with a smirk, before going on to say, "Lastly, it has an exercise room. It's got everything you would need apart from treadmills, which I left out on purpose because I want you to jog around the block every morning, or at least get out once in a while so you can have some fun. Spending all summer inside improving yourself IS the point of everything I'm giving you, but staying inside and being crippled socially seems exactly like something the Dursely's would enjoy. When you want to pack the tent away, point your wand at the tent and say 'Pack' and it'll return to a cube. Now if you look in the panel again you'll find two other items, an amulet that'll help you read faster and remember what you read better and the other item is a bracelet, which will hide your soon to be new look." Seeing Harry's confused look on his face, Sirius add, "You see Harry, it'll be hard to explain to muggles how you got from being rail thin and rather short to being someone with muscles and whatever height you're going to be within a month. So once you put the bracelet on you'll stay the way you look until the day after returning to Hogwarts, the bracelet well lose its power by then and you'll revert to looking how you should.

"Sorry to spoil the rest of your surprise but I've gotta go soon as I've got some fun planned for tonight. The third drawer contains your school books, and by that I mean every book that I could possibly imagine you ever needing, even those for Runes and Arithmancy just in case you wanted to self study those up to NEWT level, or try and haul ass to get caught up so you can take them with your friend, whichever you prefer. The fourth and final drawer contains… well you're almost fourteen and I AM the self designated 'fun' uncle, so I packed it to the brim with porn. You'll be discovering your hormones when you first transform anyway as they tend to rear up and be rather severe if your first transform is as a teenager. Don't be surprised when you transform if everything goes pretty psychedelic for a while and you come to humping another dog-I mean another one of the species you become." He hastily corrected himself.

Harry looked at him funny. "Why would I have sex with an animal? Even if I suddenly became a cat I just don't see myself deciding to spontaneously start riding Ms. Figgs cats until they couldn't walk anymore…" He said sceptically.

Sirius chuckled, having expected this. "I'm sure you've noticed the growing attraction to girls, it's probably getting harder to be around Hermione, in the literal sense, if you know what I mean." He grinned wider as he saw Harry blush but not deny it. "Well it's the same while in your Animagus form, only every female of your current species and anything compatible will look attractive. As in, super model attractive. Animals are far less picky than humans and if you allow yourself to there isn't much you won't stick your little beast into."

"Oh…" Sirius heard Harry reply and he almost felt sorry for the lad. Knowing his luck he WAS going to be a cat, and knowing his luck worked in extremes, probably a Kneazle, and burn through every cat in a two mile radios before snapping out of it, only to have a bunch of addicted kitties following him around for the rest of the summer.

"Its fine Harry, you'll understand when it happens." Sirius said slyly, "Is there anything you want to ask me before I go?"

"No, Sirius." Harry replied, his thoughts going back over what Sirius had talk about. He was sure he'd have questions in the future but for now he was stuck thinking about why he would want to fuck any animal. So saying good night to each other he closed the mirror.

After closing the mirror Harry looked at the time and to his surprise it was already ten PM. Feeling a sudden wave of exhaustion he grabbed one of the Animagus potions before he closed the box and set it on his desk; he would look through the books in the morning after the jog that Sirius recommended. Remembering that Sirius didn't tell him if the potion would transform him as he slept, he stripped to his boxers, got under the covers, and set his glasses on the his very small, half broken night stand before he took a few breaths and chugged the potion.

'It tastes… like the colour tan?' Harry mused, baffled as to how such a flavour existed. He currently felt nothing unusual though. 'At least it feels like water. I don't think I could deal with the same disturbing chunky texture of polyjui -"

That was about the time Harry's vision spun and he passed out.

TO BE CONTINUED!