A.N. Thank you to everyone who reviewed!!!!!!!

Mal

Harry and Sirius were sitting in the living room when Remus returned from his date. He did a little dance around the living room, shouting, "NEXT FRIDAY AT SEVEN!"

"Your date went well, I take it," Sirius said, watching his friend frolic around the room.

"It wasn't a date," Remus panted. "It was a lunch meeting. BUT NEXT FRIDAY AT SEVEN I HAVE ONE!" Remus did a little jig and walked into the kitchen. Sirius raised his eyebrows and turned back to the newspaper he was reading. Harry just stared at the place where Remus had danced. Remus was singing in the kitchen now, while getting things ready to make tea.

"D you think we should record him singing and use it as blackmail? Maybe we can follow him to the restaurant he goes to and play it on the loudspeaker…" Sirius said. Harry shook his head.

"How was shopping?" Remus asked, coming into the room. "Find anything good?"

"Harry, why don't you go get your books so we can show Remus." Harry slowly stood up and went up to his room. When he was gone, Sirius leaned forward and said, "He spoke some more."

"What?"

"He did! We were at the Leaky Cauldron, and he asked if we were going to sent him back to the Dursleys."

"What did you say?"

"I said of course we weren't going to."

"And…"

"He continued to say that he wasn't worth all of the trouble- And then Joshua said, 'Do you have fries to go with that shake?'" Sirius started laughing, and Remus looked confused. Joshua?
Remus glanced around the room and saw that Harry had walked into the room.

"Thanks," Remus said as Harry handed him the books from Flourish and Blotts. "Looks like… fifth year materials."

"Hmmm… I wonder why…" Sirius said sarcastically. Remus threw a pillow at him.

"Now, now, not fighting are we?" Asked a new voice. Harry jumped and looked around. Sitting in the fire was the head of Albus Dumbledore.

Harry shrank back slightly, wanting to leave.

"Good evening Professor," Sirius said, heaving the pillow back at Remus. "What brings you to our fire."

"Young Mr. Potter over there," Professor Dumbledore said, nodding in Harry's direction. "How are you doing Harry?"

Harry didn't look at the fire, but said, "I'm f-fine."

Professor Dumbledore raised his eyebrows and then turned back to Sirius.

"Has he been eating?" Dumbledore whispered.

"Yes, we've been feeding him, and he has filled out a bit since he was in Azkaban."

"Good Lord, what happened in there?"

Sirius shrugged slightly.

"Well I didn't call to talk about Azkaban," Dumbledore said. "I called to arrange a time for Harry to come visit Hogwarts so we can test how Azkaban has affected his magic."

"Er…" Remus said. "Okay… when?"

"Whenever it's good for you," Dumbledore said. "Next Monday?"

"Sure," Sirius said. He turned. "Is that good for you, Harry?" Harry nodded, still not looking up.

Dumbledore frowned slightly and said, "Monday it is. How about around noon?"

"All right," Sirius said. "See you then Professor."

"Goodbye."

With a POP Dumbledore's head disappeared from the fire.

~*~

"Come on Harry!" Sirius yelled from downstairs. "It's time to go!" Harry didn't listen. He was up in his room, curled up in his corner. He was just staring at the wall, wrapped in his cloak, and shivering. He hadn't been able to sleep that night. His dreams were haunting him again. Every night he would see Cedric and his parents getting murdered, and then Voldemort's rebirth.

"HARRY!" Sirius called again. He started up the stairs and went to Harry's room.

"Ready to go?" Sirius asked when he had walked inside. Harry shook his head.

"Why not?"

Shrug.

"Come on Harry," Sirius said again. "We need to do this to see if your magic is all right."

"I don't want to go."

"Oh… I see… So do you just want me to take your magic there and see it it's okay?"

Harry nodded.

"To bad. They haven't invented anything to do that. Up!" Sirius reached down and tried to pull Harry up off the floor, but Harry ducked out of the way and got up.

"Now are you ready to go?" Sirius asked.

Shake.

"We can see if you can get out of Divination…" Sirius said persuasively. "Come on, you know you want to. We can even visit Hagrid if we have time."

Harry looked mildly interested now, but still very uncertain.

"Don't worry, everything will be fine." Sirius said, patting Harry on the back. Harry jumped and shrank away.

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

Harry nodded, looking at the ground.

"We'd better go. We have about three minutes until we're late. Got your wand?"

Harry nodded again and walked quickly out the door. Remus was waiting downstairs.

"An owl has arrived," Remus said, pointing to the kitchen table. "The letter has the Hogwarts seal on it."

Sirius walked over and ripped open the envelope. A large marble and a little piece of parchment fell out of the envelope and onto his hand.

To Mr. Black and Mr. Potter, He read

The marble enclosed in this letter is a Portkey set to go off at noon.

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

"Quick Harry, we have fifteen seconds," Sirius said, glancing at his watch. Harry just stared at the marble. "Harry!"

With a shaking hand Harry gently touched the marble. He felt the familiar tug behind his naval and they disappeared.

~*~

Harry closed his eyes as they traveled. He didn't want to travel by Portkey. There were to many emotions… to many memories

Before he realized it his feet slammed into the ground. He managed to stay on his feet and looked around. They were standing at the Hogwarts gates.

"The least they could do was let us appear in the office," Sirius grumbled as he opened the gate. Harry was sort of dazed from the trip, and was leaning against the gate.

"Come on, Harry. This probably won't take long. You'll be back at home soon."

Harry followed Sirius up the driveway and to the doors of the Entrance Hall. Sirius raised his hand to knock on the doors, but they opened before he could.

It was absolutely silent inside, and only the sound of their footsteps could be heard. There was a mewling sound and Harry found that Mrs. Norris had come to "greet" them.

"Shoo!" Sirius said, swatting the cat away. Mrs. Norris seemed to glare at them before stalking away.

"Never liked that cat," Sirius said, frowning. "Nevermind that though. Come along."

They walked up some more stairs until they reached the gargoyle that guarded Professor Dumbledore's office.

"Er…" Sirius said. "Harry? Do you know what the password is."

Harry shook his head.

"Hmmm…"

"The p-password is always n-named after a candy," Harry said softly.

"Okay… Chocolate Frog?"

The gargoyle didn't move.

"Cockroach Cluster?"

"T-that's already been a password."

"Oh…"

A few minutes later Sirius was getting quite mad at the door. He had already tried cursing the door, and now he was trying to flatter it.

"My, what lovely er… teeth you have. Rather… big and shiny and-"

"Honestly, Black, do you honestly think that the door will respond for that form of flattery?" Said a voice behind them. They turned and saw Professor McGonnagall standing there.

"Potter, I see you've arrived for the testing of your magic," she said. "Follow me you two. Sugarquill." The Gargoyle hopped aside and they followed her up the moving stairs and into Professor Dumbledore's office.

"Sirius, Harry," Professor Dumbledore said, smiling as they walked in. "I hope you are well."

"Yes, quite good," Sirius said. "Do we find you in good health?"

"As good as an old geezer like me can get," Professor Dumbledore said jokingly. He turned to survey Harry. "How are the new accommodations suiting you?"

"Q-quite good, sir," Harry said, not looking up from his shoes.

Dumbledore exchanged glances with Sirius. "Professor McGonnagall are you ready to begin testing him?"

"Yes Albus," She replied. She turned and stared at Harry over her square glasses. "Potter, take out your wand and make sparks."

Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out his wand. He wondered if it was actually going to make sparks, but he felt the familiar warmth come to his fingertips and green sparks erupted from the end of his wand."

"Good. Now blue sparks." He did as he was told.

"Quite good," she said. "Now, make this beetle turn into a button, like in second year."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the office Sirius and Dumbledore were deep in conversation.

"He looks ill," Dumbledore said.

"We've been feeding him as much as he wants to eat, and we've been giving him his Power and Nutrition Pills."

"Has he been sleeping."

"Whenever one of us looks in on him at night he's in his bed, asleep. Perhaps he's just pretending… He hasn't asked for Dreamless sleep potion…"

"Something about him seems much different though…."

"He just started talking a few days ago," Sirius said. "We've been moving pretty fast, but we don't have much of a choice… He has to be ready to be around other people by the time school starts."

"Well, why don't you try and tone things down for a bit…"

"We've arranged for him to go visit the Weasleys on Wednesday, but he won't tell us how he feels about that. I think he's quite nervous."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, first of all, he is very cautious in large groups. He doesn't talk much, and he doesn't like for other people to touch him. And you saw how he didn't look you in the eye when we first arrived…"

"I would expect him to be happy to see his best friends again."

"So would I. Last year in his letters he said many times how he missed them over break. But this year it's just… blank."

BOOM!

Sirius leapt out of his chair to see what was wrong. Harry and McGonnagal were engulfed in a cloud of smoke.

"Don't worry," coughed McGonnagal. "That's a common mistake, Potter." The smoke cleared and they saw a button flying around the room, still with beetle wings attached. Harry frowned and waved his wand. The wings disappeared and a normal coat button fell to the ground.

"Quite good," she said. "Except for that little… incident. But quite good anyway. Now, perform the Summoning charm…"

A few hours later Harry was getting quite tired of all the spells he had to remember and perform for Professor McGonnagal. She was right in the middle of making him do spells from Defense Against the Dark Arts when the door burst open and Snape glided in, wearing a brown cloak.

"Professor, I-" He stopped and a glare appeared on his face. "Black." He hissed.

"Snape," Sirius said, a familiar dislike appearing on his face. Snape continued to glare as his black eyes darted over to look at Harry, who was practicing the Disarming charm.

"What's going on?" Snape spat.

"We are making sure that Potter's powers are in good working order for the upcoming school year," Professor McGonnagal replied before Sirius could speak.

"I'll come back later," Snape sneered. Before anyone else could say anything he had quickly walked out the door and back downstairs.

"Greasy git," Sirius said under his breath.

"I thought I told you two to have a lack of open hostility," Professor Dumbledore said with a twinge of impatience in his voice.

"That's the best we can do," Sirius said, throwing up his hands.

Professor McGonnagal gave a small smile, not letting Professor Dumbledore see.

"Well, Potter. I think that your powers are pretty close to as powerful as they were before Azkaban. You'll do fine in the schoolyear."

"Thank y-you," Harry said. He turned to look at Dumbledore. "Is Hagrid here?"

"Rubeus is currently working for me at a secret location," Dumbledore said. "I'm sure that if you write him a letter he'll reply, though."

"Thank you, s-sir."

"We really should be going," Sirius said, getting up and putting his cloak back on. "See you soon, Professor."

"Goodbye Sirius. See you on September 1st, Harry," Professor Dumbledore replied.

"G-goodbye."

"Do you still have that marble?" Dumbledore asked.

Sirius nodded and gently took it out of his pocket. Harry reached over and touched it and they both disappeared.

~*~

"You've both had an owl," Remus said when they had returned. He motioned to the two owls sitting on the kitchen table. A dark gray owl held the letter that had 'Mr. Harry Potter' written on the envelope in red ink.

"Ah! I finally got that reply from Arabella," Sirius said when he opened his letter. Harry opened the letter and pulled out a single piece of writing paper.

Harry's eyes got wide and his hand started shaking as he stared at the paper. Drawn in red ink was the Dark Mark. Harry stared at the paper and his trembling got worse when he realized that the Dark Mark wasn't drawn in ink. It was drawn in blood.