Grimmauld Place, London, England, July 9th 1994

Harry slowly stirred from beneath the covers of one of the beds at Grimauld Place. Since Sirius had been declared innocent, they had moved back into the house again. They had spent the last few days trying to clean out some more of the rooms. Harry himself had been moved into Sirius' brothers' old room, which was the only room in the house Kreacher had tried to keep tidy, although there had still been a set of robes that had jumped out the wardrobe and tried to kill him and Sirius.

He gradually pulled himself out of the bed, today he would get to meet up with Ron and Hermione again, although it had only been a few days since they had last spoke it already felt like months with the amount that had happened in the last week.

Harry was greeted by a "Good Morning" from both Sirius and Remus as he walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, Sirius was trying to fry some eggs as Kreacher had flat out refused to cook. Lying on the kitchen table was the latest issue of the daily prophet from the previous day from which Harry caught the headlines, 'Minister of Magic blames Sirius Black injustice on wartime confusion!" and, 'Sirius Black to receive monetary compensation for stay in Azkaban." Sirius had grumbled plenty about blame being put on the previous Minister Bagnold, who was now dead, over the confusion of being in the middle of a war, Sirius claimed that the only reason he hadn't leaked the story from the end of the last year at Hogwarts to the press was to try and blackmail Fudge later.

Harry went to grab some sausages and started cooking them in the oven, which somehow worked around all the magic. As he did so Sirius asked him, "Looking forward to today, Harry?"

Harry smiled, "That's a stupid question, of course I'd rather hang out with the Weasley's and Hermione over cleaning this dreary place." And although he wouldn't say it to Sirius, he was looking forward to having some of Molly Weasleys cooking over Sirius' desperate attempts at making food.

Sirius performed and over dramatic sigh, "Kids these days have no idea what's good for them, where's the fun in life without getting attacked by random pieces of furniture."

Remus said, "You didn't seem so happy about the pixies the other day Padfoot."

Sirius replied, "I said random furniture, not pixies. There is a whole different category of mischievous that doesn't crossover with fun at all."

Harry laughed, "Your meant to be showing the public that you're not insane, I don't think claiming a fight with a hostile cupboard would be fun is helping."

Sirius shrugged his shoulders, "Just because it seems insane doesn't mean it isn't fun."

Harry supposed that if Lockhart could fool the world than the wizarding public would be quite easy to fool anyway. After eating through a fry up it wasn't long until they left the house and Harry was side-along apparated over to the burrow.

The Burrow, Devon, England, July 9th 1994

The front door was swung open as soon as the familiar pops of apparition could be heard in the Weasley's front garden, immediately Mrs Weasley was calling out, "Sirius, Harry! It's so good to see you, come in, come in, there's some leftover toast on the table if you would like."

Harry slowly took a step into the Burrow, gazing around the home, just like when he had visited in previous summers, magic could be seen everywhere, in the corner of the room there was a seat with knitting needles twirling away upon it, slowly building up a blanket. The dishes from the mornings breakfast were cleaning themselves over in the sink and there was a potion bubbling away, emitting pleasant flower fumes.

It didn't take long for people to come tumbling down the stairs, Ron and Hermione appeared at the bottom of the staircase, he quickly walked over and hugged his two best friends.

Ron gave him a smile, "So much for a quiet summer mate."

Harry smiled, "Much prefer it the Dursley's though."

Before they could continue any discussion the Weasley twins had appeared behind Ron and Hermione.

"Harry!" Fred called out, "Care to join us for a game of quidditch?"

"What's Quidditch, Fred?" Responded George, who's face as serious as he could manage.

Fred turned back with his brows furrowed and his head slightly tilted to one side, "Who's Fred?"

The corners of George's lips twitched a little, "You know slightly less good-looking version of George, ginger hair, freckled face, a charming smile."

Fred nodded, "Ah, Ginger hair? He must be a Weasley!"

Georges eyes crinkled as he tried to keep his face straight, "No, none of the Weasley's are good looking."

Fred grinned at his twin as small laughs snook out of his lips between words "True, true, there awfully repulsive with their quidditch skills." Fred turned back to Harry, "Speaking of quidditch skills, care for a game of quidditch Harry?"

"I've always said one of your best qualities was not repeating yourself Fred.", George quipped

Behind them Sirius had doubled over, his laughter echoing through the house, however Harry who was much more used to the twins' antics smiled back at them and responded, "I would, but I didn't bring my broom with me."

Sirius got himself to stand up straight again, his laughter much more controlled, "I can go back and fetch your broom if you want Harry, "He turned himself to face the Weasley twins, "As long as you two don't mind me joining in as well?"

The twins shared a small smile with each other, Fred replied, "Sure, as long as you're not going to start hexing us all midgame."

George added, "Not that we would have an issue with that", his hand reached out to ruffle the hair of Ron, who was already moving out the way. "But we can't have dearest Ron here get harmed, can we?"

Sirius laughed once again, "Not that I'd be able to catch up to any of you on my old comet broom, but I'll refrain from using any spells, I suppose." Sirius ducked out of the room to quickly apparate back for a moment.

Hermione had snuck round and was now standing at Harry's side, "So, what's it like living with Sirius? Why couldn't we send you any letters at all? Why was everyone saying you had been kidnapped? What was the Wizengamot like? Have you been meeting with a bunch of people, apparently, you've been with Cyrus Greengrass, the prophet said that you had shown up with him, but I don't want to put too much faith in that newspaper, especially after they reported Sirius had kidnapped you which I knew couldn't be true?"

Harry took a step back at the onslaught as Ron said to Hermione, "Are you going to give him a chance to answer a question Hermione? You can't list them all off now, I'm sure you have a thousand of them."

Hermione huffed, "Well a lot has happened in the past week, and I'd like to know the truth." She shot a glare at Ron, "And don't pretend you don't want to know the answers either."

Ron shrugged his shoulders, "Harry will tell us all of it anyway, he's had a long week give him a break."

Fred piped up, "You mean Harry does more with his life than just play Seeker, blimey George, this is a shock"

"Of course he does Fred, remember he's got the red mark on his forehead. He's big into the dark wizard defeating thing"

Fred turned to Harry and did a mock squint as if he was searching for his scar, "Why is a red mark impressive, we've got red all over our heads."

George Deadpanned, "I heard they called that thing on our head, hair in the muggle world."

Ron snapped at them, "Stop messing around, it's called hair everywhere and you know that."

Fred mockingly let his jaw drop, "The Weasley twins? Mess around? Who do you think we are?"

Ron was stopped form responding to the twins as soon as Sirius had arrived back with 3 brooms in hand, "Moony said I should bring his old broom as well, in case you wanted to join us Hermione, I wasn't sure if you play quidditch, I know you're not on the team, but don't worry if you're not very good , I've not played in years so I'm bound to be awful."

As Sirius spoke the twins head spun between looking at their counterpart and Sirius, "Sirius, "Fred began, "Who exactly is this Moony person?"

Sirius looked confused for as second before chuckling a little, "My bad, Moony is the nickname for my friend Remus Lupin, your professor from last year."

George's jaw looked like it was about to fall off, "So that would make you… Padfoot? Or maybe Prongs?"

Sirius smiled a little bit, still seeming a little bewildered, "I was Padfoot, but how do you know that?"

Fred on the other hand had a huge grin on his face, "We may or may not have found ourselves in the possession of the Marauders Map, when Filch threatened us with detention in his office on our first year, we were lucky that Peeves distracted him."

Sirius nodded his head, "Well I hope you got good use out of it before giving it to Harry then, Prongs was Harry's father after all", thinks about Pettigrew

Two more Weasley's walked into the room, neither of which Harry had met before so he knew they must be Charlie and Bill. One of them one was short and stocky with muscly arms, his fingers were covered in blisters, and he had a large shiny burn on his arm. Based on the burns Harry assumed that he was Charlie as he worked with Dragon's. the other was much taller and slimmer, with long hair drawn back into a ponytail, he had an earring with a fang dangling from it.

The stockier Weasley spoke, "Don't suppose you mind me joining you? Bill mentioned he'd be happy to referee and Ginny's quite eager to come out and fly around."

Fred and George walked over to Charlie and interlinked their arms with his, one on either side and began marching him out of the room, "Charlie! This is a rare treat; you've refused to play Quidditch all summer."

Charlie rolled his eyes as he was dragged out of the door, "I told you I've been busy."

George said, "It's true Fred, letters to that girl from the Dragon reserve don't write themselves."

As Charlie was dragged out of ear reach Harry could make out some of the protests from Charlie, "I guess we go and follow them then?"

They had played without any seekers, with each team getting a keeper beater and 2 chasers, the Weasley twins had split up and were each taking up the beater positions, Harry was chaser with Hermione and Sirius was in the goal behind them. Charlie was playing the opposing chaser with Ginny and Ron was playing as their keeper.

The Weasley twins had spent most of the game sending the bludgers flying towards eachother rather than hitting it at any of the other players, although Fred had with a stroke of luck hit the quaffle away from goal after Ginny had taken a shot, saving Sirius who was blocking the completely wrong hoop.

They had played for an hour and the Ron, Harry and Hermione had just dismounted there brooms and headed into the kitchen to see that Arthur Weasley had returned home early from work.

He leapt up out of his chair "Ah, Harry! It's good to see you again, and it's nice to meet you Sirius." He walked over and shook hands With Sirius, "Do you plan on attending the Quidditch World Cup? Ludo Bagman owes me a few favours and I was wandering whether I could wrangle some seats out of him for the lot of us."

Sirius smiled back at Arthur, "We've already had an invitation from the Greengrass' to go with them, Me and Daniel Greengrass intend to book out a whole box and we were planning on inviting a few people on joining us, I'm sure he wouldn't mind if your family came along and joined us. And you too of course Hermione if your parents don't mind."

Molly Weasley interrupted, "We can't accept that Sirius, I can't imagine those seats are cheap, we can get our own seats from Ludo Bagman."

Sirius countered, "I have the gold to spare anyway Molly, it's the least I can do to thank you for helping to look after Harry, it means you can save that favour from Bagman as well."

Arthur responded, "Perhaps it would be nice if we all go up and watch it together, although you don't owe us anything for looking after Harry, it was our pleasure, and anyone would of done it."

Molly turned to the trio who were standing behind Sirius, "Why don't you go upstairs in Ron's room." Sirius shot Harry a glare telling him to listen, so they quickly walked up the stairs and away form the kitchen.

Sirius said, "It'll be a good opportunity for Harry to be used to the people on the Wizengamot and be with his friends at the same time. "

Molly sighed, "Don't you think he's too young to be getting actively involved in politics?"

Sirius shook his head, "I'm not making him sit on any more of the Wizengamot sessions, unless he wants to of course, I'll be named as regent before the next meeting, but I want him to understand what I'm voting on and to be able to give his own input."

Molly refused to relent however, "Still he is only a child, He should be spending time with his friends and enjoying himself, not messing around in the Wizengamot."

Sirius smiled sympathetically, "I'm afraid he doesn't have much of a choice, he's famous and was going to be forced onto the Wizengamot at some point in his life anyway, I'd rather get him used to it now rather than when he is older.

Molly chose not to comment anymore, but she remained disgruntled whilst Arthur and Sirius made plans for their quidditch world cup trip.

Meanwhile upstairs as soon as the trio had sat down on Ron's bed Hermione asked, "So are you finally going to explain what you've been up to?"

Harry smiled as he lay back, "Fine, what do you want to know?"

Hermione began, "Why did you go to the Wizengamot with Lord Greengrass? Was it something you and Sirius planned? Why did you even go to the Wizengamot in the first place?"

Harry took a breath and answered, "Well, we needed a way to prove that Sirius was innocent, catching Peter would have done that, but that was kind of impossible. But since Sirius never had a trial, we thought that going onto the Wizengamot and demanding that he got a trial would give us a shot at getting him declared innocent."

Hermione continued with her questioning, "But why did you have to go in with Lord Greengrass? Why did you go to the Wizengamot at all, surely sending a letter to the DMLE would have got it done?"

Harry responded again, "Well after Sirius explained how we both have seats on the Wizengamot, we wanted to send me in with someone, and Professor Lu-", He quickly corrected himself, "I mean Remus already knew Cyrus, so it was easy to get him to believe are story. And the Minister of Magic had already refused to believe are story and he would have to approve anything done by the DMLE, he has no control over the Wizengamot, so it was easier."

Ron raised his eyebrow, "You mean you didn't already know that the Potters were an ancestral house?"

Hermione to looked surprised, "We thought that Dumbledore or someone else would have told you at some point, and that you chose to have nothing to do with it till you were older."

Harry paused for a minute, looking between his friends, "Umm, know I hadn't even heard of the Wizengamot until Sirius told me about it, let alone anyone explaining having a seat. Should someone of?"

Hermione stated, "Yes Harry, Dumbledore definitely should of as he is the Chief Warlock."

Harry shrugged his shoulders, "Sirius doesn't like Dumbledore much at the minute, and neither do I to be honest. It's just another reason to not trust him."

Hermione quickly went to defend Dumbledore, "Harry he's Dumbledore, he's one of the most accomplished wizards ever, why would you not trust him."

Harry pointed out, "He wanted me to go back to live with the Dursley's after Sirius had taken me from the, and he was the one who told Minister Fudge that I had been kidnapped, which was an outright lie."

Hermione shrugged it off, "I'm sure Dumbledore has his reasons for doing all of that."

Harry was beginning to get increasingly annoyed at his friends view of Dumbledore, "I don't care if he has his reason, he should atleast try and explain them to us, he claimed that he told the Minister of Magic so that an emergency session would take place to help us prove Sirius was innocent, but we would have been perfectly fine by ourselves."

Hermione waved her hands in there exasperatedly, "But he's Dumbled-"

"Hermione!", Ron interrupted, "Are you going to take Dumbledore's side over Harry's, it's not like he's done a good job at keeping Harry safe has he? With the basilisk, the troll and facing Quirrell.

Hermione looked a little shocked at Ron's interruption, "I'm sorry, it's just hard to believe that Dumbledore would do something so wrong."

Harry continued to complain, "He could of atleast done something himself to get Sirius declared innocent, he's in charge of the freaking Wizengamot, and did absolutely nothing, he should have been the one who made sure that Sirius got a trial in the first place."

Ron tactfully changed the subject, "Why don't we talk about the quidditch world cup instead? It'll be cool to watch the game with you, I heard they've built a huge stadium for it!"

Harry smiled at Ron, calming down a little, "Yeah, Sirius keeps telling me he's only been to one final, but apparently that was really cool, Hopefully the game doesn't end quickly." And with that they continued to talk about the upcoming match until Harry had to leave, whilst Hermione drifted in and out of the conversation, deep in thought.

Wiltshire, England, Malfoy Manor, July 9th 1994

Lucius Malfoy glanced around his office as the tall dark-haired man stood in front of his desk spoke, "You must come Lucius; it'll be just like old times. A show of support for the dark lord!"

Lucius turned his eyes to the man, coldly glaring at him, "And why Travers, would I be interested in that?"

Travers froze for a moment, his eyebrows raised, tauntingly saying, "What do you mean Lucius, you haven't turned soft have you? Scared of torturing a few muggles."

Lucius quietly spoke back at him, "You're an idiot Travers, I'm not intimidated by thought of enjoying a few muggles. I'm just not stupid enough to think the Dark Lord will take kindly to seeing his supporters on a night out, not looking for him."

Travers' hands flew up into the air, eyes widening "And what you suppose we do, sit around, and wait for him to come back?" The death eater yanked up his robe's sleeve revealing the mark on his left forearm. "It's darkening Lucius, he's coming back, you know it just as well as I do. You're making it sound as though you're not going to stand with him."

Lucius closed his eyes momentarily and took a breath before explaining, "We have no idea where he is. If he needed us to do something he would have found a way of telling us. Your ignorance will get you killed Travers; the dark lord doesn't like those who are a loose cannon."

Travers was shaking his head, "When the dark lord is praising me and not you, don't expect any sympathy to be coming your direction", With that he sharply stormed out of the office, allowing Lucius to slink back into his chair, his focus slipping out of the real world.

He was mortified, everything he had built up since the fall of the dark lord was at risk. Some of it already beginning to crumble away. He had become the figurehead for the pureblood ideology, he had supporters and political clout, a son looking to carry on that legacy. The return of the dark lord would tear that all down.

He had been stupid to join him as a teenager, but it felt like he had no other option, his father had insisted on him doing it, and anyone who had previously ran from the dark lord had been found dead within weeks. But he could have done something, he could have gone, and sook out help form the other side of the war, but his ego had got in the way. That was going to cost him now.

The following he had built up within politics had been hugely helped by the potential for Draco to become the Lord Black, all it would of took was Sirius passing away in Azkaban and Draco would have been the only male Black around, leading him to inherit the lordship. He would have been the first person to have 2 Wizengamot seats in nearly a century. However, Black had escaped Azkaban, got himself declared innocent and was looking to hand the title of Lord Black off to his godson.

Ever since Black had escaped, he had been facing rebellions from his own ranks. He had underestimated how many people were pandering to him in hopes for future support from his son, quite a few of the more neutral houses had even refused bribes for the trial of Lord Black. If it had been a trial of anyone else than he was sure that he would have got his way, but the idiots surrounding him refused to see the benefits of Sirius Black staying in jail.

Then there was Cornelius Fudge, he had lined that man's pocket with gold for years, and as soon as there was doubt about him Cornelius had refused his support. All because of him fighting against the restarting of the Triwizard tournament.

Under normal circumstances Lucius wouldn't have cared less about a magical school tournament, but this was very different. Someone had been sending him owls containing threats, first they had started with Lucius but then they started threatening his son, they were claiming they would confound the goblet into making Draco a fourth champion, Lucius has heard the kind of things that had been planned for the tournament, Dragons, and underwater rescue missions. He refused to put his son in that kind of danger, however his protests of not letting the tournament go ahead had been entirely ignored.

He had to settle for putting an age cap on the tournament, stopping anyone not of age from entering, but he knew that wasn't enough, he would have to scrutinize every detail of the security around the goblet, making it impossible for someone to sneak his sons name in.

He couldn't lose his son.

A/N: Sorry for taking a whilst to post an update, there should be another update within the next week or two. As always please leave a review!