Chapter One: A New School Year

Harry was glad to be able to sit in peace and silence for a while, when he got himself a compartment on the train. Hermione and Ron had to be present at the Prefect's meeting, and Harry was quite glad he wasn't a Prefect for he had no intentions of having to control other people's actions at school.

For now, he was watching the passing landscape, while waiting for his friends to come to him. Also, he was thinking about everything that had happened this summer. And that had been quite a lot.

Flashback:

At the beginning of the summer, Uncle Vernon clearly had had enough. He and aunt Petunia had been heard fighting like crazy. Apparently uncle Vernon had had it with "Those bloody freaks, who think they can just order me around." It seemed he also blamed Petunia and had suddenly filed for a divorce. His aunt had been quite shocked, but well, they had been together for quite some time. Unfortunately for Harry and his aunt, Uncle Vernon not only got custody of Dudley (though really, Harry gave a little cheer about that fact) but he also got nr. 4 Privet Drive. So Harry and his aunt had been forced to look for a house elsewhere.

The problem was that Aunt Petunia hadn't worked in a long time and didn't have much money. Harry had written a letter to Gringotts', figuring that perhaps they could help them out. Gringotts' had replied that Harry could only take out a certain amount of money from his vault per month. However, he had enough to get them settled while his aunt could look for a job. So Harry had filed a check and had Order members go to Gringotts'. With the money they took from his vault, Petunia and Harry had been able to afford a small three-bedroom flat in London. The neighbourhood wasn't as fancy as Privet Drive had been, but they didn't really care.

Dumbledore had written that everything with the wards had been arranged, and so they had been able to start a new life, away from Vernon and Dudley. Aunt Petunia had been able to find a job at a bank as some sort of administrator. Harry had helped out in a local bakery during the morning, and the rest of the time he had ended up watching children from the neighbourhood. Somehow they really seemed to like him and their parents paid him for it, as well.

Harry hadn't seen Ron and Hermione all summer, as they had been in Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore had told him that he could stay there during the last two weeks of his holiday, but Harry had declined, preferring to stay with his aunt and make some money. Besides he liked not being reminded of the wizarding world. Of course, there was another reason for his refusal, but no one except Petunia knew about this. It had been time for his yearly check up again, and so he had gone to the hospital to have the tests. He was quite positive that this test would come back negative, as well. After all he had gotten 'negative' for the last several years already. This year would be the last time he would have to do a yearly test. If he was clear this time, he would only need to be tested once every five years. His aunt would forward the answer to Hogwarts and so Harry had left Hedwig with her. His doctor knew about the wizarding world, as he had a brother who was a wizard. The doctor had been told because he could keep it into consideration when making appointments and posting the results to them.

Nobody knew his aunt and him were actually very close. After all they had to fool Vernon and preferable the Wizarding World, as well. As Harry had found out in his first year (that invisibility cloak really was handy) wizards rarely got cancer and they didn't have a treatment for it. The wizards that had gotten cancer had all died of it. As Harry had found out during his research, was that those wizards had been purebloods that had a definite dislike for muggles and so wouldn't have even looked their way for a possible cure. As his aunt hadn't had any way to contact the Wizarding World, she had taken him in for treatment in the normal hospital and this had been his rescue.

Another thing Harry had found out was that it was only partially thanks to the chemo that his hair had changed from black to red (which was quite a drastic change). No his father had most likely cast a spell on him. A spell that made the child look like nearly a carbon copy of either one of his or her parents; in this case, his father, as he was the one who cast the spell. The spell was originally developed to disguise bastard children, but many purebloods had started to believe that your heir had to look as closely to you as possible (as a sign of purity of blood) and had started to use the spell as well. Obviously the spell had become somewhat of a tradition with certain families and the Potter's were one of those families. The spell had obviously been broken by the chemo and had shown him his true appearance. He sometimes had trouble keeping his laughter in, when the Weasley's would exclaim he was "Practically family, except for the hair," as he did have red hair. He wished he could tell all this to them, but knew it was better to keep all this secret. Especially since it would mean admitting that he had such large magic reserves that he could keep himself under a complete glamour charm wandlessly; no, best to keep this quiet.

There were more secrets he lived with. One had only come up this summer. He had been quite surprised to suddenly find an eagle owl on his windowsill. Hedwig had grudgingly approved of the male owl, and so Harry had accepted the letter attached to the leg. The letter had quite surprised him, as it was from someone he had never expected. After careful consideration (of which many people would say he didn't have) he replied, careful of it being a trap. However he had started a pleasing correspondence with the sender, and he figured they could be considered friends by now. Unfortunately his friends would probably have heart attacks when he would tell them who he had befriended, so he would keep quiet.

He had kept up a good correspondence with both of his friends, his new friend and with some members from the DA, mainly Neville, Luna and Ginny. Harry figured that Ginny might have a crush on him still, but he didn't know for sure, and he wasn't planning on encouraging her. He had enough to worry about with Voldemort looming ahead somewhere.

His thoughts then returned to the owl he had gotten just after his birthday. The owl had carried the normal Hogwarts envelope -with a note saying that Order members would shop for his supplies- but also his OWL results. His aunt had to urge him to open them, as Harry had been too nervous to open the envelope. When he finally did he was happy, but also disappointed. Of course the only one to be disappointed in had been himself, so that self-pity party had lasted for only a few days. His OWL scores had been as followed:

Charms: O

Theory: O

Practical: E

Transfiguration: O

Theory: E

Practical: O

Defence Against The Dark Arts: O+

Theory: O

Practical: O+ (because of his Patronus).

History of Magic: P

Theory: P (not finished).

Divination: P

Theory: A

Practical: T

Potions: A

Theory: A

Practical: A

Care of Magical Creatures: E

Theory: E

Practical: E

Astronomy: A

Theory: A

Practical: P, because of disruption exam.

Herbology: E

Theory: E

Practical: E

All in all he had expected some of those scores, but Potions had really made him moody. He knew he wouldn't be allowed to continue with NEWT level Potions and that he could forget about being an Auror. On the other hand, this forced him to reconsider his future options, and he had decided that he hadn't really wanted to be an Auror anyway. He had only said so, as it seemed to be the only logical profession. Now he just didn't know anymore.

He had replied back to Professor McGonagall about his choice of subjects for the coming two years. As NEWT level students, they could choose some extra subjects, but no more than two.

Harry now took: DADA, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Transfiguration, healing and Politics. The last subject was a bit of a difficult one. Finally his aunt had persuaded him in taking the subject, as she felt he should know more about the world he was part of. Harry was just afraid it would be some sort of campaign for the Ministry.

His workload was a rather light one, as even Ron had managed to get into more NEWT classes. He had passed Astronomy, and had written it of on the fact Bill always made him watch the stars. Harry didn't mind, he would have extra time to study for his confrontation with Voldemort.

End Flashback.

Suddenly Harry was startled from his wanderings about this summer, when the door of his compartment flew open, and a laughing Ron and Hermione threw themselves at him. Surprised, he hugged them back, feeling more comfortable to do so now, as he had before. After all this summer his aunt finally had the chance to be openly friendly towards him again. Also, Sirius had been a big help last year. Harry couldn't do much more than miss him still, but the loss wasn't as hard as it had been several weeks ago. Shaking his head, he forced himself to listen to Hermione and Ron recounting their summer to him.

With this he passed the remaining hours on their travel to Hogwarts.

When they were finally settled at the Gryffindor table, Harry couldn't help but smile. Especially when he noticed who exactly was going to be their DADA Professor this year. It seemed Dumbledore had done what he had wanted to do some years ago, and had made Remus Lupin come back to teach. Remus had already smiled and waved at Harry, who had waved back.

A huge cheer came up from the student body when it was officially announced Remus was back on as professor, with Tonks as his substitute on the days near the full moon.

After the Sorting, the Feast and all announcements had been made, Harry--with a full stomach--made his way towards Gryffindor Tower with a silly little smile on his face. Yes, he was back to his home again, and he was sure this year would be good.