Review Responses:

To All: thank you for catching my major error, Harry is indeed SEVENteen, not sixteen. Sorry about that, it is fixed now.

SeekerTLK: Personally, I do not believe Snape to be evil, and I'm hoping to put some of that opinion into the story. How late or how early, I am not sure. I also agree with you on Dumbledore's reasoning, though I suppose there are a few other factors I think about. As to your final point, I suppose you're right. I'm not sure yet whether or not I am going to have Harry see the Dursleys again, and perhaps it might be a bit more emotional, for him anyway, it's hard to see the Dursleys getting all upset about him leaving, if you know what I mean

Dark Wolf of Teros: Ron and Hermione will come into the picture, don't worry. I just didn't think they were coming with him to Privet Drive. On his journey, yes, but not to his relatives. Of course, I could be wrong.

Chapter 2: Settling In

Harry walked down the stairs, finding his way to the kitchen, where Remus was waiting, or rather, working on lunch. "About time you came down here," the older wizard teased as he cut a melon.

Harry chuckled, "Want some help?"

"Sure." He waved his free hand at the refrigerator, "There're some things for sandwiches in there, I think there's a bit of everything, so take what you like."

Harry nodded and pulled on the handle of the fridge, and a small wave of cool air brushed his face. He then pulled out the vegetable drawer and got out a head of lettuce and a tomato. As he went for the jar of mustard, his eye was caught by a carton of drinks. "Butterbeer?" he said in surprise.

Remus looked over his shoulder and chuckled. "Yes, butterbeer. It's not limited to only the Three Broomsticks you know."

"But where can you buy it?" Harry asked, getting out the rest of the supplies. "I mean, it's not something that they sell in a muggle supermarket."

"True, but it's not a muggle drink, now is it?" he replied. "There are some other small... shopping centers I guess you could call them, for wizards and witches in London. However, they're run more by chain companies, and aren't as big as Diagon Alley." He laughed. "I mean, if you think about it, where do all the other wizarding families who don't know a thing about muggles go to shop!"

Harry laughed, picturing Mr. Weasley in a muggle grocery store. Though the man was family to Harry, it was still an amusing image. It also made sense though, what Remus had said. After all, all the magical population couldn't be living just in London, there were other parts of Britain as well that weren't all muggle.

He shook his head, amused at how much he did not know of the wizarding world. And they think I'm supposed to save it? He thought withgrim humor, setting the sandwich supplies on the counter and unwrapped the bread. "So, what do you want on yours?" he asked Remus, who had moved on to getting out dishes.

"Turkey, Swiss, lettuce, and mustard." Remus replied promptly. "No mayonnaise."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You don't like it?"

He shuddered. "Hate it."

"How come?"

"Do know what's in that stuff?"

Harry swallowed. "Do I want to know?" Remus laughed, setting the plates down. He did not tell Harry his opinion of what he thought the ingredients were, and for that the younger wizard was grateful. Once the sandwiches were made, they sat down and ate in companionable silence. As they were putting the dishes in the sink, Harry's curiosity was aroused by a picture near the coffee maker. "Is that you?" he asked, pointing.

Remus looked and smiled. "Yes, when I was eleven with my father and step-mother."

"Did your parents get divorced?" he asked, a bit more quietly.

Remus sighed. "No. Originally, my father had married a witch, but she died of dragon pox shortly before I was bitten. A few years later, he married my step-mother. She was a muggle, but her brother was a wizard. Still," he chuckled, "She liked things done the 'old fashioned way'."

Harry smiled, "So no magical help with chores, huh?"

Remus laughed. "Never." From there, their talk ranged from chores to annoyances with relatives. After finishing their talk by laughing themselves breathless at a tale of Remus' cousin fleeing from an enraged duck, Remus showed Harry the way to the basement and attic. Ironically enough, both were reached via the same stairwell. In the closet in the study upstairs, there was a door that led to a small platform with a spiral stairwell going both up and down. He led Harry up first, and after eleven steps, they reached the attic.

It was pretty big for an attic, and Harry couldn't help but grin at the decor. Up here was all Gryffindor red and gold, from the carpet to the ceiling. There were posters of Quidditch teams hung on the walls, and a bookcase full of magazines and what looked like photo albums. There was plenty of lighting from the windows high up on the walls, as well as the lamps that hung from the ceiling. Comfortable armchairs sat in a circle around a coffee table, on which a miniature Quidditch pitch was set up. A record player sat on an end table near the bookcase, and a few boxes were stacked up in the opposite corner.

"What is this place?" Harry asked, gazing at everything.

"A reconstructed hideout," Remus said, quietly, with a smile in his eyes as he remembered. "At James' house, they had an extra room that we turned into a clubhouse of sorts for the Marauders. It was here that we invented pranks, talked, and basically just hung out together. The miniature Quidditch pitch was James', since he became team captain in our fifth year, the record player was mine, and the prank-logs were Sirius'. We all brought in a poster of our favorite teams."

Harry walked over to one of the walls that had two posters. "Those were Sirius', he'd always liked the Falmouth Falcons, since they had famous beaters." Harry moved to the next wall, and looked at those while Remus explained whose they'd been. "The Kenmare Kestrels were my favorites, since my cousin had been sponsored by them for his tuition to the University in Ireland. The Wigtown Wanderers were Peter's favorite."

"Why is there a... a meat cleaver on their robes?" Harry asked, confused.

Remus chuckled. "The team was founded by a family, and their father was always at the matches, waving a meat cleaver." Harry smiled and went to the last two posters. Remus sighed, "Those were James'. He liked the Harpies because they only hired witches, good-looking ones too. But his real favorites were the Montrose Magpies; they've had a lot of good seekers."

Harry shook his head at his father's liking for the Harpies because of their looks. Though he himself admitted they were pretty, he also found his thoughts drifting back to Ginny."What kind of magazines did you guys read?" he asked, pulling himself away from thoughts and posters.

Remus waved him over to the bookcase, "Come and see."

Harry walked over and read the titles. "They have Quidditch magazines?"

He laughed. "Naturally, there's not just the Quibbler and the Prophet you know."

Harry smiled and read the rest of the titles. "Prankster Perfect, Tactics for Teams, The Notecaster, Music Today... wow, there's a lot of them." It was a fair, but unnecessary statement, since six of the long shelves were filled with the magazines.

Remus chuckled. "Well, six years worth of magazines, we kept every single one of them. Of course, Lily made James give his share up when they got engaged, she said he was too much of a pack rat. Of course, he wouldn't throw them away, no more than he'd throw away our Marauder Volumes." He pulled out a thick photo album and dusted off the cover before handing it to Harry.

Opening it, Harry saw that it was filled with pictures of the Marauders, from the train on Hogwarts to Christmas of their first year. "You guys took a lot of pictures," he said, flipping through the thick pages.

"Actually, only some of those early ones are real pictures. The others came from memories. We put them in a penesive at first, and then got pieces of them on their own, Lily and myself did some, if I do say so myself, pretty impressive charm work to turn them into pictures. Now, come on, you still have to see the basement, and then you can look around more."

So Harry closed the album and put it back on the shelf, a shiver going through his spine as he realized that his father had helped put together these things, that they'd been his. Being in this room reminded him of when he'd opened his Christmas present in first year and had found the invisibility cloak, of the feeling he'd gotten when first putting it on...

"Coming?" Remus' voice jerked him out of his thoughts and Harry hurried after him. They climbed down the stairwell and arrived in a slightly darker room. Its walls were stone, but the floor was wood. There was a small potions lab of sorts in one corner of the room, a cabinet a little ways away, a sink, and a dueling platform on the opposite side of the room.

"I think this room explains itself," Remus said with an easy smile.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, it does. Do you think I could put my potions stuff in here?"

"Of course, I don't think a cauldron makes a good decoration piece."

Harry chuckled, "I think I'd have to agree."

"So, now with the grand tour over, it's time to talk." He motioned for Harry to follow him and they went back to the attic, seating themselves in opposite chairs. "You were a little vague in your letters," Remus said, looking at Harry seriously. "But I believe I got the part that you're not returning to Hogwarts." Harry nodded. "Do you mind if I ask why?"

"Nope," Harry replied.

"Then why? Won't Ron and Hermione be upset? I know Molly would be as well, if what she thought of Fred and George leaving is any indication."

Harry swallowed the lump in his throat, his explanation would bring up Dumbledore's death, and that was still a painful ache in his soul that reminded him how the old wizard had always stood by him, from being thought of as the Heir of Slytherin, to standing against the slander of the Daily Prophet. "School isn't the only place you can learn, Remus," he said, staring past the wizard's shoulder and out the window. The storm still raged, and now it gave Harry comfort, to see that his soul was not the only chaotic thing out there. "But the war is everywhere. With Dumbledore gone, people are loosing faith in our chances of winning. The war needs to end, and I know how to weaken Voldemort.

"When Dumbledore was giving me lessons last year, they were lessons about Tom Riddle, the boy and man who eventually became Lord Voldemort. We found out how he's made himself 'immortal', and I believe it's also why he's so cruel. He used horcruxes, Remus. He killed people and tore his soul into pieces, and each piece he preserved in something, an object, most likely an artifact related to the Founders of Hogwarts. Dumbledore was looking for them, there were most likely six. Do you remember the diary from my second year?"

"Yes," Remus replied, "Dumbledore had told the story to Padfoot and I."

"Well, it was one of the horcruxes. He'd started making them when he was still in school! There was another, a ring from his mother's side; Dumbledore found and destroyed that. He found another horcruxe as well, Remus, it was a locket of Salazar Slytherin. He took me with him, and in order to get it..." A cold feeling swept over Harry as he remembered the pained moans Dumbledore had emitted as he drank the dark liquid, the desperate attempts he made to save someone from his memories. Harry was lost in the memory itself as he remembered the cold water he had scooped up in the crystal goblet, and the locket they had gotten. It had been a replacement...

"Harry? Harry, are you alright?"

Harry's eyes snapped back to Remus' face and his mind to reality. "Yeah, I—I'm fine, I was just remembering the place where we found it." He cleared his throat, to cover a shiver as well as get past the lump in it. "Anyway, the locket was a fake. Someone else had destroyed the horcruxe first. But Dumbledore didn't know that, he never got a chance..."

There was a moment of silence as the two men remembered Albus' murder, as they remembered the attack on Hogwarts. "Go on," Remus said softly.

Harry took a breath and nodded. "I need to find the other horcruxes and destroy them. And I can't learn about them in school, they're took dark to be found even in the restricted section. I need to go out and find them, but I need to learn how to find them. That's another thing I can't learn in school. Ron and Hermione...they said they would come with me, but I don't want them to be in more danger."

"They will be in danger wherever they go, Harry." Remus said gently. "That's what war is. And if they learn what you learn, I can sense already that they will be safer."

Harry then thought about Ginny. "Will Hogwarts still be as safe as it was?" he asked.

"I don't know," he sighed, "only time will tell."

But time is running out, Harry thought.

Authors Notes:

Thank you again, as always, for reading. But now I have a question, how soon do you think Harry should beginresearching/searching? I have an idea, but I want to make sure it's in a good amount of time for you, my dear readers. Reviews are appreciated, and I wish you all luck on your own writing. A. S. Leif