Disclaimer: anything you recognize is not mine but instead belongs to the wonderful author J.K. Rowling.

Spoilers: Harry Potter books 1-5, slightly AU.

Warnings: child abuse, slash, maybe more later.

Chapter 1: Holiday?

It was a hot summers day in Little Winging and children of all ages were running around playing, but on number 4 Privet Drive a boy, who looked to be no-more than 13 or 14, was doing the gardening, a group of bigger boys were lounging around near by, occasionally shouting insults and stones at the smaller boy, who ignored them with an ease which comes from years of practice. Eventually the bigger boys left and the smaller boy continued his work in peace.

Later that night the small boy picked himself up off of the floor of his small room and pulled out some books, parchment, quills and ink. For this small 'boy' was in fact a 15 year old wizard who's name was Harry James Potter.

5 hours later, at 4 in the morning Harry put away his books and equipment and collapsed on his bed. That night 5 people visited him in his dream and explained to him that he was their heir, these 5 people were Merlin and the 4 founders of Hogwarts, they then said that he would understand more at another time.

When Harry awoke he saw the 5 large trunks, one purple and white with a phoenix embossed onto it, one red and gold with a lion, one green and silver with a snake, one blue and bronze with a raven and the last yellow and black with a badger. There was a note balanced on top of the purple and white one

Harry

To shrink the trunks just press your hands to the sides of each one and say 'shrink' there is a chain in my trunk at the top to which you can attach them, we have also adjusted your school trunk so that you can do the same with it.

Merlin

Harry removed the chain and shrunk the trunks attaching them all to the chain as he went.

That night after another beating Harry lifted himself up off of the floor got out his homework, checked it over, and then unshrunk his new trunks. He decided to see what Rowena's had to offer first so he opened the blue and bronze trunk, inside were books galore all sorted in order of subject and then difficulty, at the top was a note from Rowena.

Harry

I hope that these books will help you in your studies. If you use occlumency you should be able to read faster and retain more information as well as stay awake for longer.

Rowena

Harry thought this over and then cleared his mind- he had practiced since he had got back from the school for the summer- 10 minutes later this was done and he opened his eyes again, he could see clearly and could hear the tap dripping next door, he got Rowena's defense books out and started reading at 6:30 he packed away and realized almost immediately that he was not tired. He shrunk his books again then went downstairs, and made breakfast for his 'family', he then started cleaning the living room all the while thinking through what he had learned the night before, by lunchtime the inside of the house was clean and his Aunt and Cousins lunch was ready, he'd learnt a long time ago not to ask for food but to survive without, next he moved onto working outside, he cleaned the garden, then he got to work on his relatives dinner (chicken pie) while that was cooking he started to paint the fence. When his uncle returned home he went up to his room.

That night his Uncle came up with the whip and beat him, Harry cleared his mind and cut off his senses, he knew that it would hurt worse when he let his brain listen to the pain again his uncle left half an hour later and Harry wrote his next letter to the order.

Moony

I would appreciate it if you could come and collect me as soon as possible.

Prongslet

Harry sent the letters like that just incase they were intercepted by Death Eaters, although Harry was rather worried as this was the 3rd week and 7th letter and he had had no reply.

Harry continued this pattern of work for the next two weeks but stopped sending letters to the order. When, by the day before his birthday, he'd finished reading books on defense and healing. After and extremely bad beating which had broken both his arms and some of his ribs he decided to try his hands at healing magic, so he used an old healing charm when he didn't receive an owl he started to heal the rest of his body then used a glamorize to make it look as though the wounds had not been healed, then he read the books left to him. In the letters he had discovered that he would receive the rest of his powers tonight, so he prepared he lay down in his bed, at exactly midnight the pain hit. It was worse than the cruciatus but he ignored it.

The next night he started going through his old school books and performing all the spells wandlessly 1 year of books each night, skipping potions. That weekend when his relatives went out he got out Rowena's book and started making healing potions, and other potions that may be useful in the war and had a long store life, like truth serums and even some poisons. He then packed away and got to work with the weapons in Godric's trunk; he had yet to open Salazar's or Helga's but would leave them till later. He made easy work of the basic sword drills, and knife and dagger throwing as well a archery but knew that he really needed an opponent to test his skills against.

The next weekend he opened Salazar's trunk only to be shocked, it was full of potions books, equipment and ingredients many of which were extinct, there were also instructions as to where to find all of these, he pulled out the books and started reading, he read through the poisons and truth potions and then he found a heritage potion, he also found to both his shock and joy the cure for lyconthropy. When his relatives left for the cinema in Sunday night he got to work immediately, he started the Lycanthropy sure first, two hours later it was on the boil with spell on it to make sure it was stirred correctly, when Harry found him tucking his hair behind his ear for the 12th time he grabbed a piece of rag and transfigured it into a piece of velvet and tied his hair back, before moving to work on the lineage potion- which after his blood was added woud have parchment soaked in it for 24 hours – or until the whole potion had soaked in- would show the family tree of the user going back as far as the parchment would allow it to go. At midnight Harry took the Lycanthropy cure off the boil and bottled it, he put an anti-breaking charm on the vial, then while waiting for the lineage potion to brew he grabbed a roll of parchment which when unrolled would be 30 feet long, he then lifted the potion off of the flame and placed the parchment in it before placing glamour charms on the area of the room where the cauldrons were standing.

That week Harry concentrated on animagi, he could turn into ant animal he wanted as long as he concentrated on it for long enough. That weekend he got out the heritage results and decided to wait until he returned to the school to look at the results. As it was the 28th of August and he hadn't received his school letter's yet he decided he would have to work out another means of transport to the school. Public means were out, to obvious , so in the end he decided to fly as a phoenix as that way he wouldn't be able to be seen by muggles.