CHAPTER 1:
Harry opened his eyes slowly as sunlight streamed into his room at number 4, Privet drive.
"Morning Snuffles" he mumbled.
He smiled as he heard a small whine come from the large black dog on the floor.
Harry had been allowed to keep 'Snuffles' because he had told the Dursley's that he could use magic now that he had finished 6th year. This was not entirely true. Wizards and witches were not permitted to use magic until they were 17 years of age, but the Dursley's didn't know this, and now it didn't matter, because conveniently enough today was Harry's 17th birthday.
"Come on Sirius get up!" Harry said, dragging himself out of bed and over to the animagus.
The black dog gave a whine and rolled over so that he was facing away from Harry.
"Sirius! Up, NOW!"
Harry glared (despite the fact that Sirius was facing the other way with his eyes closed), then smiled, after all, he was 17 as of today and he was free to use all the magic he wanted, no more under-age restrictions!
Picking up his wand from his bedside table he muttered what any common muggle would think was just a normal Latin word.
In fact it was not, it was Latin, yes, but it was not normal, it was a spell, and if 'any common muggle' had have been watching they would have seen the spurt of water come out of the wooden instrument in Harry's hand and drench the dog on the floor.
Harry watched with an amused smile as the shaggy black dog suddenly took on the form of his very annoyed –not to mention wet- godfather.
"Morning" Harry said, smiling innocently.
Before Harry could even blink Sirius had pulled out his own wand and had cast the jelly legs jinx.
"Sirius!" Harry yelled, trying desperately to hold on to his set of drawers as his legs went wild.
"What?" Sirius said, taking on the same innocent smile his godson had worn not a minute ago.
"This is not funny!"
"So you think"
"Come on Sirius…"
"Hmm…since I'm up I think I might as well take a shower" Sirius said thoughtfully.
"Don't you dare!" Harry hissed.
Sirius flashed his godson a grin before transforming into a dog and trotting off up the hall towards the bathroom, where, minutes later, Harry heard the taps turn on.
"That son of a bitch" Harry said, laughing, though not as much as he would have liked seeming his feet were now aching from moving endlessly and getting no where.
"Who's a son of a bitch?"
Harry looked up quickly at the voice and saw his cousin blocking his door.
"Well just between you and me" Harry said, then lowering his voice to sound dramatic and secretive he said "I was talking about you"
Dudley let that comment pass seeming there was something else on his mind and as Harry had always said Dudley couldn't think about two things at the same time, if he did his half a brain would mal-function and leave Dudley as good as dead.
Dudley, not being very subtle, revealed what was on his mind.
"What the fuck his wrong with your legs Potter?" he said.
"It's not possible, a swear word coming from Ickle Diddikums mouth?"
"Shut the fuck up Potter, it's not like you're always this tough, what about when i'm around my mates, huh?" Dudley sneered.
"Oh yeah, a scary pack of deadbeats they are!" Harry laughed.
"We'll see later, they're all coming over for the week" Dudley said smugly.
"Great! I have to put up with rat-face, deadbeat, Crabbe and Goyle" Harry said, inwardly laughing at the look on Dudley's face when he had said 'Crabbe' and 'Goyle'.
"Crabbe and Goyle...? Whatever...anyway, I think you are just jealous because you don't have any friends to stay, not that they would be allowed to stay!" Dudley chuckled at this, while Harry gave a huge yawn and pulled out his wand.
"That's really great Dudley but do me a favour and hold still soI can give you a proper set of pig's ears, maybe if your lucky I'll even give back your old tail"
Harry had never seen Dudley run so fast.
It wasn't long after Dudley had left that Sirius returned from the bathroom, a smile plastered on his face as he transformed back into a man.
"I'm going to kill you" Harry said, glaring.
"With that said, I'm definatly going to take back the spell" Sirius said sarcastically.
"come on Sirius, it's my birthday!" Harry pleaded, with a sad puppy look on his face.
Sirius burst out laughing, "Harry, don't try using my look against me, it just won't work!" Sirius laughed.
"Fine, whatever, just take back the spell" Harry said.
Sirius obeyed this time.
Harry fell back on his bed, savouring the stillness of his legs.
"Happy Birthday" Sirius grinned.
"What, no present?" Harry asked, noting the absence of an overly wrapped parcel.
"That, my dear boy, is for later" Sirius said.
Suddenly a few voice sounded up the stairs.
"Hey man!"
"Big D!"
"What's been happening?"
Harry groaned.
"What's wrong?" Sirius asked.
"Dudley's friends are here for the week" Harry said.
"So...?"
"They're the ones that made my school life before Hogwarts miserble"
"So...Pay back?" Sirius grinned, twirling his wand in his fingers.
"I'd say...definatly" Harry answered with a grin.
"Before Sirius had even got a chance to smile the room was filled with a tapping sound that made Harry run to the window.
Opening the window he was amazed to see five owls fly in.
"Someone's popular" Sirius commented.
Harry nodded slowly, not really having heard Sirius.
Un-tying the first parcel and letter he noticed that the owl that had brought it was a school owl.
"It's from Hagrid" he said, noticing the large scrawl on the envelope.
Dear Harry,
how are ya? I've been real busy lately soI haven't had time to but you a proper gift, so instead I thought I could help out a bit and get you some potions ingrediants from the forbidden forest.
your good friend Hagrid.
"Yes, appartently Dumbledore has kept him really busy with work from the order" Sirius said, "Been making him go into the forbidden forest to see if any of the creatures in there are interested in helping us"
"Good luck to him" Harry said, remembering how the centaurs had threatened Hagrid two years ago.
As Harry opened Hagrid's present he found a number of odd looking things.
The first looked like a large mushroom...a large black mushroom with golden lines running down it.
"Dragon eye mushroom" Sirius said, "Quite rare, main ingrediant for the Veriteserum potion that Snape loves so much, be careful not to squish it."
Harry nodded and placed it aside gently before picking up the nextingrediant.
"Ghost heart stone" Sirius said, talking about the heavy black stone in Harry's hands, "Used in most poisens and in the most advanced love potions, only rare because the only place you can buy it is in Knockturn alley"
"Love and death...an interesting - yet not uncommon- combination" Harry grinned, suppressing a small shudder from the memories of his 2nd year when he had got lost in the flu network and ended up in knockturn alley.
Finally he picked up the third and final ingrediant.
"Silver thread?" Harry said confused.
"That's not silver thread!" Sirius exclaimed, taking the 'thread' from Harry.
"Holy shit...This is Acromantula web, how on Earth did Hagrid get his hands on this?" Sirius asked, a look between confusion and amazement on his face.
Harry shuddered as he thought of his favourite overly-large spider that had tried to eat him, Aragog.
Moving onto the next parcel Harry found that it had been carried by an owl with a small purple cloak around it's neck bearing the letters 'WWW'.
Harry picked up the letter on top.
Dear Harry,
Congratulations on finally growing up (Sirius laughed at this). How're we going you ask? Well business is very well except for the packs of vicious 7 year old girls that giggle at the pygsmy puffs all day, I'm seriously considering moving the studpid fluff balls outside along the street next to the burping kettles, I don't think my poor ears could take one more giggle fit! Well we heard you were stayng with your aunt and uncle all holidays, so we thought we'd give you something...fun (as an innocent gift of course!)Well time is money and our customers are VERY impatient.
You kind, handsome, caring, smart, talented, modest friends...Fred and George!
P.S. Ginny threatened us with a number of nasty hexes if we removed the stupid cloaks from the store owls...
Harry laughed before opening the parcel from them.
The parcel contained a box of skiving snackboxes, one or two canary creams and a few storm cloud sherbets.
The next parcel was unmistakebly from Ron and Mrs. Weasley judging by the chirpy little owl that was definatly Pig and Errol.
Hey Harry,
Mum says hi and askes how you are. Sorry you couldn't stay over this holidays but Dumbledore is right, you're safer there, and besides you have 'Snuffles' there to keep you company. Well Happy birthday! I'll let you know now that mum sent you and 'Snuffles' a jumper each, don't know why since it's boiling, but the woman's crazy, wouldn't listen to reason. Well I have to go de-gnome the yard with Ginny now so see ya later.
Ron
P.S. We're going to diagon alley tomorrow, can you make it?
Harry smiled at the memories of previous summers where he had helped Ron de-gnome the Weasley property, but that seemed so far away now...
Opening the parcel Harry found a couple of boxes of bertie botts and HEAPS of choclate frogs next to two jumpers.
Pulling out the jumpers Harry threw the larger of the two over to Sirius.
Harry's jumper was a deep red with a black dog that looked remarkebly like Sirius's animagus form on it.
Sirius's was a forest green and on the back, written in black was the word 'Padfoot'.
Setting the jumpers aside Harry and Sirius got changed from things they had slept in.
As soon as they were changed they fell back onto Harry's bed, ready to eat as many chocolate frogs as they could.
Harry was just about to eat his first one when a knock sounded from downstairs shortly followed by Aunt Petunia's voice calling out for Harry to answer the door.
Harry groaned as he got up.
Even at the risk of being turned into pigs they still made him do these things, and he only did them so he could get it over with and then return to his Dursley-free room.
Dragging his feet down the stairs Harry made his way to the door.
Stopping just in front of the door he turned to face everyone in the lounge room.
"Gordon, Piers, Dennis and Macolm?" Harry said in mock suprise, "Hardly recognised you you've grown so ugl-"
"GET THE DOOR BOY!" Vernon yelled, sending spit flying at Harry.
Harry rolled his eyes and turned to the door, his hand already turning the doorknob...
A/n: Wow...I finished with Harry opening a door...lol. I'm not sure if anyone is reading this but thisis only the beginning, Hermione comes into the next chapter and remains in, well, from what i've planned so far, all of the chapters.
Please review, I'd like to know if this was well written or not.
P2MU