Bright and early on the morning of the 31st of July, Harry woke up and realized he was now thirteen.

It didn't feel much different from being twelve, really, but Harry hadn't really expected anything different.

The most important thing he had to do that day was to fly to Grimmauld Place to join Sirius, and possibly Remus as well depending on how things went, but when he went into the kitchen to have breakfast Hedwig barked at him.

"Good morning, girl," Harry smiled, yawning slightly. "Funny to think it's been two years, isn't it?"

Hedwig bobbed her head slightly, which Harry understood to be quite a difficult thing for an owl to do, and pointed with her wing at the table. That led Harry to notice a thick Hogwarts envelope, neatly in front of one of the seats and addressed to him.

Opening it, Harry found that there were more sheets than normal. The usual train ticket and book list were there, but so was a letter from Professor McGonagall about visiting Hogsmeade and a permissions slip that was to be signed by a parent and a guardian to let him do so.

Harry decided that Sirius would probably count, because technically Sirius lived in Hogsmeade some of the time, and that he could always send a letter to Professor McGonagall to make sure.

The book list was about as long as it had been in the previous years. First year he'd had to get books for every subject, and second year there'd been all of Mr. Lockhart's books, but for third year Harry had books to get for Arithmancy, Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures as well as the Grade Three book of spells and some more advanced theory books.

That meant two books on Arithmantic equations, one about Ancient Runes (Futhark And Thou, by Kylver Stone) and The Atlas of Beasts and Creatures – apparently written by one Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank, which was one of those wizarding names that made Harry stare at it looking for the pun.

Eventually deciding there wasn't one, Harry rummaged around for a bit in his hoard to get his equipment list from first year. He still had all the books from that, obviously, but it looked like he'd need to get some of the other things on there again.

That sorted out, Harry let Hedwig out of the door before taking down his tent. It took about ten minutes to fully dismantle, fitting into the carry bag which went into his backpack, and before eight in the morning Harry was ready to set off.

"Shall we, girl?" he asked, brightly.

Hedwig agreed, spreading her wings, and Harry gave her a short letter he'd written to Sirius the night before.

He wasn't entirely sure where Grimmauld Place was yet, but Hedwig would know. She hopped to the window, swooping out into the cool Surrey morning.

Harry followed, stopping for long enough to shut the window behind him, then took off and followed Hedwig.

Almost immediately, he remembered that he hadn't actually done much flying with his newly-grown wings just yet.

Harry's post-molt body and wings were all differently sized and weighted to how they'd been last week. His wings were bigger, which meant he could move more air at once, but also meant there was more resistance to moving them (so he had to work harder to bring them down) while the rest of his body was longer and a bit heavier – the aerodynamics were all different.

He came close to hitting a nearby chimney as he tried to climb, wobbled a bit, and actually did hit one of the trees around the edge of the local green. Twigs and leaves went everywhere, a few birds scattered out of their perches, and Harry shook his head a little to clear it before carefully making sure his glasses were still in place.

When he'd disentangled himself from what he thought was probably a horse chestnut, Hedwig was orbiting the tree he'd hit on whisper-silent wings.

Smiling a quick thanks to her for not going on ahead and leaving him to get lost, Harry jumped down to land on the green proper with a flap of his wings. Leaving them open, he moved back and forth a little to get a feel for the wind.

There wasn't much of it, but it felt like this should work.

Harry took off again, this time tilting back and powering almost straight upwards, and kept rising until he was high enough that all the houses were little boxes and he could see over the nearest of the South Downs.

That seemed like it was high enough that he wouldn't bump into anything (so long as he kept his eyes peeled for aeroplanes if they went close to Heathrow or Gatwick) and Harry held out his wings in a stiff glide until Hedwig flew up to join him.

"Sorry, girl," he said. "I didn't want to bump into everything from here to Sirius' house."

Hedwig precked at him, flying close enough to brush his snout with the feathers on one wing, then turned and began to fly northeast towards London.

Harry followed, adjusting his flight slightly to try and get used to it again.

Thirty minutes or so later, Harry had gone through two unplanned aerial somersaults and one brief tailspin, but he was doing much better, and when Hedwig began spiralling downwards he was able to follow without much fear of accidentally ploughing straight into the ground.

It was the sort of thing that even human Seekers apparently did, but it would probably sting. And do damage to the garden of whoever he hit.

A little after Harry was low enough to pick out individual people, he realized which of the streets was Grimmauld Place. That let him plan ahead better, and after a pause to fix the local landmarks in his mind he flew around in a wide-ranging approach circuit.

Harry swooped down the street a little above the level of the parked cars, then flared all of a sudden and landed with a skitter of claws on the pavement.

Hedwig vanished into an open window a little way up the street, and Harry loped over to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.

The inside of Number Twelve was completely different to how it had been the previous time Harry had visited.

Back then it had been a definite work in progress, little puddles of cleared-out space with a decade of clutter and as much as a century of Dark artefacts and Dark magic filling the rest of the house. Sirius had made it as cheerful as he could, but it had still been obvious.

Now it was bright and airy, the curtains drawn back and replaced with filmy net curtains that let through almost all of the light, and the carpets were scrubbed. (The one in the front room turned out to be mauve, which was quite a surprise.)

There was no sign of the portrait of the old Mrs. Black, either, which was good – Harry hadn't wanted to be called a featherless chicken or whatever insult she'd come up with this time – and some lovely art of things like stags and wolves and dragons graced the walls instead, probably mostly Muggle because they didn't move.

"I like it," Harry said, walking around in a circle, and Sirius lit up.

"You hear that, Kreacher?" he asked. "He likes it!"

"The polite dragon is just being polite," Kreacher replied, walking in from the kitchen with a glass he was drying. "Because polite dragons are polite, dogmaster. That is what the word polite means."

"This isn't about the wallpaper, is it?" Sirius asked, sighing. "I let you pick for the first floor."

"Wallpaper is important!" Kreacher insisted.

Sirius shook his head, giving Harry a hangdog look. "See what I have to put up with?"

"Do you have any idea how many times we said that in Hogwarts?" Remus asked, getting up out of an armchair.

He smiled. "It's good to see you, Harry. And you weren't joking when you said you'd had a growth spurt!"

"Yeah, I think I'm going to need to get a new one of everything," Harry agreed. "At least it's all at once?"

"That probably is a good thing," Sirius mused. "Your dad went through a phase where he was growing just enough that he needed new clothes every term."

He paused. "Though that might have been because I was casting shrinking charms on them so they got smaller very slowly indeed."

"It sounds like that might be part of it," Harry agreed. "Though – actually, I know clothes work with the Animagus transformation. But can you untransform wearing different clothes?"

"I don't think so," Sirius said, paused, then turned into Padfoot.

He turned back into Sirius again a moment later, inspected his clothes, and shook his head. "Nope. Worth a try, though."

"Lucky you," Remus chuckled. "I have to buy clothes in bulk. Or remember to Transfigure something that I don't mind losing, even if I only end up as Moony for about five minutes."

"What would happen if you did the Animagus ritual?" Harry said, suddenly curious. "Would you end up as a wolf animagus as well as a werewolf?"

"Good question!" Sirius announced. "Kreacher, take a note please!"

Kreacher got a notepad and a pencil from behind his ear (which Harry supposed made sense, because House-Elf ears were big and you could fit a lot behind them) and duly made the requested note.

"Anyway!" Sirius added. "It is your birthday, Harry, and we've got a surprise for you!"

Mindful of what two Marauders might mean by 'surprise', Harry wondered if he should protect himself with his wings or something.

"Sirius and I were talking to Ted Tonks," Remus added. "And we realized there's something that neither I nor Sirius have done, and you probably haven't done either."

He picked up an envelope off the nearby table. "Which is why, for your birthday, we're taking you to the cinema."

Going to the cinema was a strange experience.

It wasn't the first time Harry had seen a movie. Harry had seen bits of them at Privet Drive, and then all three of the Star Wars films at once a year ago, but that had been in a living room when the only other people around were family and friends and Dudley in particular was quite loud during the movies he found interesting or boring or exciting.

Here, though, the three of them got some popcorn and went into a darkened room full of seats – finding the seats which matched up to the seat numbers on their tickets – and sat down, or Sirius and Remus sat down while Harry found it easier to lie on the floor with his head held up to about the same level as those of his Dogfather and Lycanthruncle.

When the film started, it was definitely different from watching something in a living room. The screen was so much bigger that it felt… more like the difference between watching something on a television and actually being there, really, only not as much, while the sound was definitely louder.

Someone told Sirius off for being too loud during the bit before the film itself where they showed other films that were going to come out soon, which made Harry decide to be as quiet as possible while he watched.

It turned out that that… wasn't really possible. Not because Harry forgot, but because the film was a comedy.

Harry was sort of familiar with the story of Robin Hood, but it felt like he wasn't really getting a lot of the jokes in this version of Robin Hood. That was okay, though, because there were so many jokes so close together that he kept being startled into one laugh after another.

It was probably okay to laugh if everyone else was as well, though.

"I don't know what I expected, but… that really wasn't it," Sirius admitted, as they came out of the cinema. "It was better, though."

"I think I've been missing something all this time," Remus agreed. "I heard you laughing, Harry – I think that means you liked it?"

Harry nodded, sniggering. "The bit where they got out the movie script to check, that was hilarious!"

He shrugged. "It's a pity they didn't show Little John's family, though."

"Why's that?" Remus asked.

"Everyone knows Little John was raised by dragons," Harry explained. "It's in Dragon Boy. His pet wolf seemed to have gone missing as well."

"I… think those bits aren't in the original Robin Hood story," Remus frowned. "Sirius, do you remember those bits in the original Robin Hood story?"

"Well, the version I remember Lily told me about was the version where Robin Hood was a fox," Sirius said. "That's all second-hand, though."

"I wonder if the Smith Twins know about that one," Harry said to himself.

"Well, we should get home," Sirius suggested. "I don't know about you, but I'm interested to see what everyone got you for your birthday!"

He shrugged. "It's kind of a pity that the Tonks can't be here today, but Ted said they'd come around tomorrow."

Harry nodded.

"Want me to fly home?" he offered. "You could Apparate and I'll meet you there."

"That's sweet of you, but we'll stay with you," Sirius decided. "It's not that far to walk."

He shrugged. "Besides, I'm still trying to be more Muggle."

"Was that you who Uncle Vernon had lunch with a couple of days ago?" Harry asked, and got a nod.

"Do I want to know?" Remus said, rubbing his temples.

"Probably not, Moony," Sirius replied, sounding like he was barely restraining a cackle.

"I don't know, I think you're supposed to tell me at this point," Remus countered. "Shall we check the script?"

Harry giggled.

It rained on the way back to Grimmauld Place, and Harry used both his wings to act as umbrellas for Sirius and Remus.

He sort of wondered what it would look like to anyone who couldn't see that he was a dragon, though not really enough to accost someone and ask.

"I am a bit surprised you didn't open your presents before we left," Sirius said, as he unlocked the door. "I know we ate out, so you didn't have all that long before we left, but you didn't have to put on clothes to go out or anything."

Harry's reply was a shrug, and Sirius yelped as Harry's still-wet wings sprayed him with water. "Oops, sorry… I don't know, really. Maybe it's a dragon thing."

"A dragon thing?" Remus repeated. "How do you mean, a dragon thing?"

"Well, I get possessive over things," Harry explained. "But presents are already mine, whether I know what they are or not."

"That's quite different to Sirius," Remus agreed. "You know I caught him sneaking downstairs to open my birthday presents early, just to see what they were?"

"At Hogwarts?" Harry asked. "Wouldn't your presents have been all over the place? Or in your dorm room but with other people?"

"I didn't say it was at Hogwarts," Remus replied. "That happened last May."

"I was curious," Sirius said, a whine in his voice as they entered the front hall.

"Padfoot, you got me most of those presents," Remus countered. "How could you possibly not have known?"

"In my defence," Sirius replied, loftily. "I am a bit thick."

"Fair enough, no further questions," Remus agreed immediately.

As it transpired, Hermione hadn't just got him a book. There was a book in there – The Last Command, the third of the Star Wars books that were about Luke and Han and Leia and Mara Jade and Grand Admiral Thrawn – but Hermione had also included an apology if he already had that and a book token for just in case.

Harry wondered if it would be okay to get himself a book with the book token, duplicate it, and then give a copy of the book to Hermione. That way it was sort of like the book token had been shared between them.

Neville's gift was much weightier, and when he tore off the wrapping paper Harry grinned in delight.

"What's that, then?" Sirius asked. "Oh, is it one of those books you can hide things in?"

"No, it's a book about how The Lord of the Rings was written," Harry replied. "It's really convenient, actually."

"Oh, that book with the Horcrux in it," Sirius realized. "Neat."

Harry put The History of the Lord of the Rings to the side, absently chewing on some of the wrapping paper, and turned to a gift which had no name tag and silver-gold wrapping paper.

It turned out to contain a pair of big fuzzy slippers, made to look like the overlarge scaly feet of some generic monster, and considerably bigger than Harry's feet currently were.

Harry assumed that was probably from Dumbledore, though he wasn't going to rule out Fred and Fred Weasley.

The next gift was something Sirius and Remus had worked on together. It looked at first sort of like a dust cover for a book, and he looked at it a bit oddly until Remus demonstrated.

What you did was to put the big dust cover around one book, and then touch the spine of the result to the spine of a second book. The book you'd wrapped in the cover then changed shape and appearance, merging with the dust cover so that from the outside it was a duplicate of the second book, while still containing the contents of the first book.

Harry was duly impressed with a way to carry a big book around in a small form, and said so. Sirius assured him that it was no trouble at all, it had been fun to make, and that he could use it to disguise a novel as a textbook if that was what he was into.

Remus joked that the only way he'd kept Sirius focused was by coming up with a Marauder use for it. (Sirius promptly agreed, and christened it the Chameleon Cover because you had to have an alliterative name unless there was no alternative.)

The present from Ron (which had arrived via Percy's owl Hermes) turned out to actually be a present from the whole Weasley family according to the letter with it. It was nice to know they were all thinking of him, and along with a dozen well-wishes from Weasleys (Fred and George each gave two, and Dobby was on the list as well) there was a rather nice-looking if old fashioned camera.

Mr. Weasley was kind enough to explain how you had to develop the photos to make it so the pictures would move, and Harry was already thinking of places he could take the camera to get good pictures as he set it aside.

Dean's present was the last one Harry opened, which was a box with four Subbuteo figures in it.

Dean's accompanying letter apologized to Harry for having sort of picked something out last minute, and that he hoped Harry didn't mind much.

Harry didn't really know how to play Subbuteo in the first place – he knew what it was, because he'd read about it in books a few times, but it hadn't really been the sort of thing he'd been interested in.

Sirius was interested as well, musing about how the board game they'd played last Christmas was one which only recreated one specific Quidditch match while the Muggle game could do any football match.

After a few minutes of that discussion, Harry carefully put his presents together on the table so they wouldn't be forgotten.

He didn't want to interrupt the conversation, though, because the thing that was really nice about a birthday was just being able to spend it being happy.

What was the point of not doing something you enjoyed, if the reason you were stopping was anything to do with a birthday?

After a month at Privet Weyr, it was nice to be able to talk about magic again. Not so much being with people who knew that magic existed, because Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia did know that magic existed, but being able to talk about things like Hogwarts without knowing that the person he was talking to was going to do their best to ignore it.

Sirius hadn't heard yet that Mr. Malfoy had lost his house-elf, and he was very amused by the whole thing – and pleased to hear how well the little fellow was settling in at Ron's house, as well.

He also thought for about ten seconds before suggesting that good Marauder names for Fred and George would be Trouble and Strife, though he didn't say which should be which.

Remus had good news as well, which was that he and Sirius had passed on the Homorphus Charm to werewolf support groups in France, Germany and America. It still meant that a non-werewolf had to be around to cast the spell, and it wasn't safe yet without Wolfsbane, but they were doing all sorts of tests to try and iron out any of the remaining problems with making werewolves into people who had a problem for a few minutes once a month (instead of for a whole night once a month).

Even if Lockhart had been a fraud, he had at least had a positive impact in that way, which was a funny thing to think about.

"...wait, hold on a moment," Sirius requested, as they were halfway through Harry explaining how magic worked in the Belgariad books.

"Yeah, anyone who has enough skill and power can turn into any animal," Harry agreed. "Most people get used to just one or two shapes, though."

"No, it's something else," Sirius explained. "Did your aunt say something about a greasy boy?"

"When did you meet Harry's aunt?" Remus asked. "I don't remember you going over to their house."

"No, this was when I met Harry at the station," Sirius clarified. "You know, when I borrowed your old clothes?"

"That was weeks ago," Remus blinked, before counting under his breath. "Yes, almost exactly a month ago."

"I remember it, yeah," Harry volunteered.

"Well, that's that mystery out of the way," Sirius decided. "Always wondered how – um, how Severus got to know Lily. I always thought they met on the train."

"You never thought to ask?" Remus blinked. "You wondered about something for over twenty years and you never thought to ask?"

Sirius shrugged. "I think we've already gone over how I'm a bit thick sometimes."

"That's kind of interesting," Harry volunteered. "I might ask Professor Snape about it, but I'll have to pick a time when he's not very busy or not very annoyed."

"Well, good luck to you," Sirius decided. "Anyway… oh, speaking of that sort of thing, I think it should be possible for you and Remus to go and do some of that special practice Dumbledore was talking about. It probably won't be for a couple of weeks, I just thought you should know it'll be this August."

Harry nodded, taking that in. "Is that because you got special permission? I know we can't normally do magic outside Hogwarts."

"Special permission is one way to put it," Sirius agreed, sounding deeply amused by something.

That Sunday, Harry woke up a bit later than he had on his birthday.

He'd talked until quite late with Sirius and Remus, and with Kreacher when the House-Elf could be persuaded to take part (which had told Harry that Kreacher didn't approve of Dobby's life choices, though he'd also grudgingly said that Mr. Malfoy wasn't very pleasant to Dobby either), which was part of it – though another part of it was using the Chameleon Cover to read a bigger book lying in bed than he'd normally be able to.

It was a really versatile present.

Most of the morning was taken up with exploring Grimmauld Place (which Sirius wanted to come up with a different unofficial name for, though his best guess so far was Happy New House to be the opposite of Grim Old Place and Harry and Remus had agreed that wasn't very good) and seeing how everything had been cleaned up and redecorated.

Sirius' room was a mess, though Kreacher said quite firmly that that was because Dog Master preferred it that way and didn't know where everything was if it had been tidied up.

Harry could sort of sympathize with both of them, because he preferred a pile of things on the floor as well (even if he did keep most of his books on shelves) but that was something he only really did for his bed itself, and when Dudley left his things all over the place it was often Harry's job to clear them up.

The oddest thing was how Regulus Black's room had been given to Kreacher, though, who'd proceeded to make absolutely no changes to how it looked.

Given that it was a bit of a mess as well, just as Regulus had left it, it seemed a bit hypocritical of Kreacher (at least, as far as Harry was concerned).

That was probably okay, though.

Sirius' cousin and her family turned up via the Floo halfway through lunch.

"Siri!" Andromeda Tonks called, not stumbling at all as she exited the fireplace. "Oh, and this is Harry Potter, I see – it's nice to meet you at last!"

"It's nice to meet you as well," Harry replied, getting up from his chair (which took a bit of shifting about, as he'd tried threading his tail through the back) and shook first her hand and then that of her husband. "I think Sirius said you were a therapist?"

"A healer in general," Andromeda clarified. "Witches who do healing don't have to specialize as much as Muggles do, because we have spells to make things easier. But yes, I've got some experience in therapy and mind healing – Ted's the one who's really good at fixing breaks and scrapes."

"Hope you enjoyed the film yesterday," Mr. Tonks added. "What did you think?"

"I wasn't really sure I got all the jokes," Harry admitted.

Mr. Tonks blinked. "Jokes? I thought the jokes were quite simple."

"I didn't really understand the one about the Patriot Arrow," Harry replied.

"Oh, I see," Mr. Tonks realized. "No, what happened there was that Sirius didn't take you to see the film I suggested. I would have thought the one about dinosaurs was a better choice."

He shrugged. "But, you know. I only met Sirius Black last November and already I know he's a law unto himself."

Harry quite liked Mr. Tonks. He was quite a bit older than Sirius and Remus, and he seemed quite laid-back as well.

"I'm not sure if you know Dora," Mr. Tonks added, sweeping his hand behind him to indicate his daughter.

Dora – Harry sort of remembered that her full first name was Nymphadora, but Sirius had said she didn't like it – gave Harry a brisk nod. Her hair was quite eye-catching, a sort of brilliant green Harry had only seen before on a high-visibility vest, and the young dragon had never seen a witch wearing a denim jacket before either.

"She's been going through Auror training," Mr. Tonks said proudly. "She's still got a way to go, but she did very well on her concealment and disguise portions."

Dora laughed. "Yeah, you could say that. I'm kind of tempted to ask Harry for a review."

She shook Harry's paw as well. "What did you think?"

Harry frowned, not sure what she meant, then tilted his head and sniffed.

There was something familiar…

"Oh!" he realized. "So you're Sue D. Nym?"

"Yep!" Dora agreed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I was hoping someone would work that out, but also kind of not? Bit on the nose, but it meant I passed, and I got to help teach people Defence too."

"How did you do that?" Harry asked. "You look really different, but you smell sort of the same."

"Huh, smell?" Dora mused, mostly to herself. "Might need to look into that, maybe I should try perfume… anyway, I'm a Metamorphmagus. Watch this!"

Her hair went blue, then yellow, then a bright bubblegum pink before cycling back to fluorescent green.

Harry certainly thought it was neat, and said so.

"It's one of those powers which just shows up every so often," Mr. Tonks said, smiling at his daughter. "You have to work at it to make it as flexible as Dora is, though."

"Dad," Dora protested, sounding amused. "Don't make jokes about flexible!"

"Oh, no, I didn't even see that one," Mr. Tonks groaned.

Harry wasn't sure what was so bad about the flexible thing.

Kreacher put together some extra lunch for the Tonkses, and that sort of turned into the main meal of the day with everyone taking snacky foods and sitting around talking.

Remus was interested in how it had been clearing up the mess that Mr. Lockhart had left of the curriculum, and Dora seemed quite happy to discuss it – which was good, because it was very interesting to think about teaching from the teacher's side of things.

Mr. Tonks spent most of the time talking to Sirius about films and other Muggle things – it sounded like he'd stayed in touch with a lot of Muggle things after leaving Hogwarts – and was delighted to hear that Sirius had enjoyed the Asterix books, while Sirius not-so-subtly asked what Andromeda would like if she had the chance to buy something without any worry about price.

Apart from when he was listening to that sort of thing, Harry mostly ended up talking to Mrs. Tonks. She was full of questions and advice about his OWL years (or at least third to fifth years, which Harry supposed you could call the OWL years because you did the same subjects for all three years).

In particular, she said that the key to Defence was to just pick up the good bits from each teacher and pay attention to the textbooks – including the ones from previous years if you could.

It was good advice, and Harry took a moment to write it down just in case.

August, as it turned out, was a lot sunnier than July that year. It wasn't much warmer, but it was better than nothing.

One of the first things they did was to all head down to Diagon Alley together, not just for Harry to pick up his books but also so he could get new robes, a new cloak and some new gloves.

There were other things as well, since Harry had been going to school for two years and some of his original supplies had been worn out or used up (or in some cases eaten by mistake), and while there Harry also saw a really very nice looking broom that reminded him of something.

It took a minute or so to remember where it was from – it was the prototype broom that Mr. Lockhart had tried to escape on, which was apparently called the Firebolt. It did look sort of nice, and Harry was sure that Ron and Ginny would enjoy looking at it, but Harry's Quidditch days were probably behind him unless there was some kind of plan to bring him into the England squad he wasn't yet aware of.

(The idea of being a washed-up ex-sports-star at the age of thirteen gave Harry a bit of a giggle, and he had to apologize to Madam Malkin for his poor timing. She was quite understanding, and told Harry that she was quite grateful to him in any case for letting her expand her business for quadrupeds and other unusual situations.)

After he was properly set up with his supplies for next year, Harry went to visit Dean's family.

None of Dean's relatives were magical, which was a bit of a disappointment to everyone (especially Dean's sisters, two of whom were old enough to know where their brother went for most of the year), but they welcomed Harry into their home and Harry was able to show off some of the magic things he had which didn't require a wand.

Emily particularly liked the magic book that could change into other books, though she said it was a bit hard to read when she turned a really big book into a small one, and Lucy thought hard about how her brother said Harry was a dragon before asking for a piggyback ride.

It turned out that Harry was able to fly with someone on his back, though it was a lot harder than books like Dragonflight made it sound and Harry could only just do it with the eight-year-old Lucy Thomas. Lucy herself said that it was a really weird thing to do, because when she was flying it was like Harry (as in, a thirteen year old boy, to her) was just lifting her up in the air and not letting her down again.

Dean said he hoped that next time Harry got bigger it could be his turn.

More than once, Remus took Harry up to Hogsmeade via the Floo and then flying out to sea, heading to a remote island in the Hebrides where nobody actually lived.

Once there, they started on the special practice that Dumbledore had suggested. It was hard work, with Harry doing more-or-less nothing for the whole day but practice magic – first learning how to cast a spell, then casting it with his wand, improving his tail-casting until he could do it while he was on the move, and finally in some cases breath-casting it.

Harry had thought he was quite good, but Remus really pushed him as hard as he could get. It helped that there wasn't any time needed to do homework, or a book that had to be read, and even that there wasn't much distraction either – it was just spell practice over and over again.

Usually by the end of one of the practice sessions Harry's head hurt, but he didn't mind – it was really interesting, especially when Remus got into how to modify a spell as well as do the basic version.

There was just something inherently neat about being able to fly overhead and cast a fireball spell from his mouth, then hit the same place with a water conjuring spell from the wand on his tail to put out the smouldering heather.

Even if Harry still usually missed with the second bit and Remus had to put the fire out.

Harry supposed that it was sort of natural that August would go faster than July, or seem to, because he was spending much more of it having fun.

He'd only taken a dozen or so pictures so far, partly because he kept forgetting to bring his camera, but the ones he had (which included a photograph of Diagon Alley and one of Moony, Padfoot and Harry – taken during the few minutes before Harry cast the Homorphus spell and reversed Remus' transformation) all seemed quite good to him so far.

It was easy to see what Colin Creevey saw in photography.

A day's visit to Ron's house had introduced Harry to the Burrow, as well – which was a house Harry would never have imagined before, but which was definitely the sort of place you could see a family of witches and wizards living – and Mrs. Weasley had given him a hug and thanked him for everything he'd done for them.

Dobby had done that as well, after going goggle-eyed over how Harry was bigger than he remembered, and then Mr. Weasley had taken Harry aside and asked him earnestly about how watches worked.

It was really sort of a pity Harry had run out of answers so quickly, because Mr. Weasley was clearly passionate about that sort of thing – he was also just not very good with things like electricity, and it seemed like he often cast spells to cover the gaps.

Maybe there was a book about electricity that Harry could get him.

The one thing that Harry did wonder about, though, turned out to have quite an easy answer. He asked Mr. Weasley if he'd done Muggle Studies in school, and Mr. Weasley had sadly replied that he'd done Runes and Arithmancy only and had regretted not taking Muggle Studies since the start of fourth year.

That Ron was doing it was something Mr. Weasley found very exciting.

Somehow, though Harry couldn't really remember actually discussing it, they all ended up in Diagon Alley on the last day of August.

"Back to Hogwarts tomorrow," Dean observed. "I still don't get why Harry has to ride the train, though."

"What other options are there?" Ron asked. "I don't think they'd let him hang on to a rope on the back or something."

He frowned. "Actually, Harry, have you asked about that? It would be pretty cool. Kind of like… what's that Muggle thing?"

"Windsurfing?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, like windsurfing," Ron agreed. "I bet Harry would be up for it."

"Maybe," Harry mused. "For a bit, though, not for the only way to get all the way up to Scotland. I wouldn't have time to read any books."

"Fair point," Ron admitted. "I don't really know why you like most of those books, but if they're as good for you as stuff like Tooth and Fang is to me I can understand that you like it."

"What I meant was that his Dogfather has a house in Hogsmeade," Dean went on. "Couldn't he just Floo there?"

"Maybe, but I don't really feel like it," Harry shrugged. "It's nicer to spend time with you all, even if we probably do need to ask Percy to Extend the compartment."

"Hey, we could do it," Fred suggested. "It's not like it's an impossibly hard spell, the kind of thing only the Head Boy could manage."

"It is above OWL level, though," Hermione countered.

"It's not like we've ever exactly let that stop us," George shrugged. "I'm pretty sure we can do it, and if we can't we'll just change and spend the journey that way."

He snapped his fingers. "Being able to turn into Trouble and slash or Strife is brilliant for letting us fit extra people in a compartment, and it's the only way I know to make a single normal-sized doughnut bigger than my head."

"A noble cause indeed," Ginny agreed. "You two did register, right?"

"Perce made us do it," Fred agreed mournfully.

"I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what I turn into," Neville said. "Does anyone have any idea?"

"Sirius said that you don't really know until it happens," Harry provided, and both the twins nodded in agreement. "But that it suddenly makes a lot of sense… though it doesn't always make sense until you know something about yourself."

"That reminds me," Hermione said. "I wonder what Crookshanks will think of Animagi. He's a smart kitty, but is he that smart?"

"Are you sure the word you're looking for is 'smart', Hermione?" Ginny asked. "I'd have said 'Malicious' was a better word."

"No, I'm sure he's not malicious," Hermione shook her head. "He's part-Kneazle, isn't he? He can tell when someone's untrustworthy."

"Malfoy can usually tell when someone's rich," Ron snorted. "That doesn't stop him being rich as well."

He shrugged. "Still… I'm kind of looking forward to next time Tyler or Anna try to sneak into the Gryffindor dorms."

"That's a good point," George mused. "By George, George, I think he's got it! Our feline friend will be protection from our foxy foes!"

"Knowing them, I'd have thought Crookshanks might help them," Neville pointed out. "Or stop them. Whichever he found amusing at the time."

"So you're basically saying he'd be a third side," Fred muttered. "Well, we could do with some more challenge. How much trouble can one feline be?"

A resonant purr interrupted him, and he noticed with some surprise that Hermione's big pet cat was sitting on his lap.

"I don't know how you got there," he added. "But that's my property, not yours."

Crookshanks flirted his tail, and settled quite firmly in place.

"That's you told," Dean chuckled. "Though – I know you two aren't much of ones for lessons, but how much free time do you actually have with all the electives?"

"Well, speaking strictly in confidence," George said, as Fred tried without much success to divest himself of Crookshanks. "You remember last year's Quidditch? That was fairly normal, though it consumed so much of our free time we only had the time for most of our normal pranks."

"And ignoring half of our lessons," Fred added. "It's very tricky to get ignoring your lessons right, you have to work out exactly when it's nothing interesting."

"We made charts," George said.

"I think I'll ask Percy for advice," Hermione decided.

"I'm still not sure how you're going to manage doing all the subjects," Neville admitted, then shrugged.

"Oliver Wood's graduating at the end of this year, right?" Ginny asked. "He didn't do what that Marcus Flint did and fail a year?"

"No, he passed his sixth-year exams, though Toutatis alone knows how," Fred answered, accepting that his lap was Kneazle territory for the forseeable future. "It'd probably be Angelina as captain next year, if nothing changes, and she's slightly more sane."

"So far," George cautioned. "Remember the previous Quidditch captain went off to wrestle dragons."

He pointed at Harry. "So, what are you doing with the massive amounts of free time you'll have?"

"Well, I'm not sure if it'll turn out to be massive amounts," Harry shrugged his wings again. "But there's a couple of clubs and societies I want to start. One each."

"Harry already mentioned this to me," Neville added. "I kind of want to see who shows up to the club."

"I'm more interested in seeing who shows up to the society," Hermione told them. "Especially the ones we haven't met yet."

"...like who?" Fred asked.

"I don't know, I haven't met them yet," Hermione pointed out. "But there were June, Tanisis, and the Smiths last year, there's probably going to be at least someone who isn't human this year."

She paused. "That is, if they've actually defined human yet. According to Muggle biologists Veela would qualify as human, and so would Kitsune, Giants… anyone who can have children with humans, or with other humans anyway."

"Muggles don't have Veela and stuff to examine," Fred protested.

"Which is why I don't think we can use it," Hermione agreed. "But Muggle biologists disagree about a lot of other things anyway. There's a big argument at the moment about whether any dinosaurs had feathers."

"There is?" Harry asked. "I thought the big argument was about whether dinosaurs were fast moving. That's what it said in Jurassic Park."

"Oh, we've known that for a while," Hermione replied. "They found fossils of dinosaurs in a fight years ago… did you like Jurassic Park, by the way?"

Harry nodded, then held up a paw and waved it a bit.

"It kind of seems like the dinosaurs were a bit too ready to kill and eat everyone?" he said. "Even the dragons on the reserve I visited were nicer than that. But it was good apart from that."

Holidays were nice, because Harry could spend time relaxing and reading.

But going to Hogwarts was nice as well, and this was one of the main reasons why.

AN:

And that's August.

No escaped convicts to deal with, or inflated aunts... though there is Harry's introduction to the cinema.