A/N: Ok everyone; this is where I take my leap of faith and start writing myself. I'll be using the text from the original story but will be adding somewhat to it and hopefully improving just a little and adding my own personal touch to it. Thanks to those people who have offered to be my betas. Let me just explain to you guys. I am legally blind, therefore I can't read graphics. The e-mail addresses on people's profiles are actually in graphic mode, so I can't read them so I can't e-mail anyone back and send them chapters for example if they have offered to be my beta. So if you have been so kind to offer, please send me another message with your e-mail, perhaps put a space between each section so that it's not blocked out. All constructive criticism appreciated.

Chapter 4

'The legend of the Heir of Hogwarts is one of the more unbelievable legends surrounding the history of Hogwarts. All experts from around the world agree that the myth of the Heir of Hogwarts is so fantastic that it must be impossible.'

Hermione Granger was having a bad holiday so far. She had been told by her parents that they were not going on vacation this year, so she had nothing to do but read. Normally this would have made her happy, but this year was different.

She was still recovering from the Department of Mysteries. She winced slightly as she shifted in her seat and felt the tenderness of her ribs. She at least, had stopped taking the daily potions that Madame Pomfrey had given her, now it was just time to fully heal.

Her injuries brought her back to thinking about Harry, her one true friend and perhaps more, if she was honest with herself. She had had a crush on both of the boys since third year, but ad not wanted to destroy their friendship by selecting one over the other. She had been enormously disappointed that neither had asked her to the Tri-Wizard Yule ball, but realized that Ron was just too dense to realize that he liked her until he saw her that night dressed the way she was. Harry, she realized, probably knew of Ron's infatuation with her and being the noble guy he was, would not stand in his best friend's way. She also thought perhaps that Harry was also scared of losing one of his first friends if he made a move and she did not reciprocate.

Her view on all of this had altered somewhat last year though when she, along with Ron had secretly joined the Order of the Phoenix. She had been shocked that Harry had not joined along with them and for this, she felt enormously guilty. Ron, on the other hand, showed his true colors once more. His jealousy once more surfaced with the smug satisfaction that he had been chosen over Harry. This disgusted her so much that she lost any feelings of affection she had had for the red-headed boy.

Far from feeling that Harry had been out of control for his out bursts during the year, Hermione felt that Harry was fully entitled to be enraged at the treatment he had been subjected to. She had really questioned his treatment first when she had heard about the Dementor attack upon Harry and his cousin. If Dumbledore's blood wards were so strong, then how was this attack able to happen in the first place? She thought he was probably better off with them at Grimmold Place, instead of with his abusive relatives, especially after the death of Cedric Diggory. Throughout the whole year Dumbledore kept having meetings with them insisting it was to see if Harry was stable enough emotionally to join the order. Hermione now thought they were updates on what Harry was doing and she now thought their role for the headmaster was as a spy on Harry, rather than as anything useful for the war effort.

Now that she had been told by Dumbledore that she and Ron were to take up training to become proper order members in July, she had grave doubts about the headmaster and Ron. She had no doubts about Harry at all, especially after she had heard about Harry's reaction after Dolohov had attacked her at the Department. Neville had confided in her after she had woken up as he felt it was his duty to inform Hermione as he knew that Harry was never likely to admit his reaction. Hermione was warmed by his reaction as it verified what she had hoped about Harry for a long time.

'Now,' she thought to herself 'It's time I tell him what's going on and, if he forgives me, I'll tell him.'

'The legend entails that the Heir will come from a family of important ancestry. He will face hardships that could break most men, yet he will remain true.

When his life is at the farthest depths of all his misery Hogwarts, will be there for him and will choose him as her heir, He will become the strongest

Magical being on earth. '

Ginny Weasley read this passage carefully and once more thought of the raven haired boy that she knew without a doubt she was in love with. She had told Hermione the truth when she had told her she was over her silly crush with the boy who lived. She instead had fallen head over heels in love with the real Harry. She knew she owed him so much when he had saved her life and if she didn't know any differently, which she didn't, she would think she was reading about Harry with this Heir of Hogwarts. She also knew of the duplicity of his two friends throughout the year, but knew also that while Ron's was intentional, that Hermione's duplicity was actually manipulated by Dumbledore. She had never trusted the headmaster since her first year, when Tom had confided in her the fact that Dumbledore knew about his own abusive background at the orphanage but did not stand up for him with the headmaster at the time to let him stay at the school. It was Tom's treatment at the orphanage, along with his father's betrayal, which caused him to release the Basilisk, to get his revenge on the muggles he saw had caused him nothing but pain from the get go.

It was time to write to Harry, she decided. She would tell him everything she knew as well as give him a subtle hint about her own feelings and see what he did. His reaction would, hopefully, be what she wanted it to be. Thinking this, she continued reading…

'The Legend of the Heir of Hogwarts, started after the death of the great seer Morgana. It is rumored that on her deathbed, she had the prophecy about the

Heir in the presence of the Founder of Hogwarts; upon hearing this, they traveled the world searching for the knowledge needed to retrieve an unknown

Artifact.'

….

Luna Lovegood closed the large tome in front of her with a sigh after reading the last passage with a sigh. No matter what she did, she could not get the thoughts of a green eyed, raven haired boy from her mind; not that she was complaining. Apart from her father, Harry was the only person who tolerated her. He seemed to make an effort to understand the real her and the logic behind what she said.

She had the façade of the dreamy eyed weird girl down to a tea. It was the perfect defense for her against the rest of the world; being able to hold the rest of the world at arms length, just the way she wanted it. It never worked that way with Harry right from the start. He seemed to see right through the mask she had carefully worn after the death of her mother, which had affected her so badly and see the real her with apparently no effort. Perhaps he saw a kindred spirit in her and could relate somehow, she thought.

She clearly saw how angry, confused and distraught Harry was the night of the leaving feast; it was all there in his eyes. It took all of her considerable self control not to take the young man into her arms and tell him that everything would be alright. She came to a decision right there and then. She would help Harry no matter what it took. With this thought, she rose from her bed and went in search of a quill and parchment to tell him.

….

…The suspect ran into Nocturne Alley and disapparated.

N. Tonks.

Tonks sighed as she finished writing up her report for the day on a suspect she had tried to apprehend during her watch on Diagon Alley. She was quite unhappy these days for a number of reasons. Firstly, her favorite relative had been murdered during a battle at the Ministry and had been killed by her Aunt, no less. When she saw how the death had affected Harry on the platform at the end of the school year, it broke her heart to see the great sadness and the burden that seemed to weigh upon his shoulders.

Tonks was no fool and she knew that Harry had some major part to play in this war. She had known that the prophecy they were guarding was about Voldemort and Harry and guessed that it had to do with Harry being the one to destroy Voldemort once and for all. What she did not understand though was the way Dumbledore was treating the young man. For someone so vital to the war effort, Dumbledore was keeping Harry in the dark too much and leaving him dangerously weak, although from the Department of Mysteries and from what Sirius had told her previously, Harry was doing an excellent job of not only training himself, but also a small army of loyal friends, ; training that allowed them to last as long as they did with Voldemort's inner circle fighting them and still coming away from the fight with no fatalities, only conditions that could be easily healed with a bit of time.

Tonks also knew that she was falling for Harry and fast. It had begun Christmas of the previous year and despite the age difference she knew without a doubt that the feelings she had for Harry were real. She had tried to deny it; instead dating a lot of other guys to convince her she was feeling for Harry was just normal attraction. This theory would work fine as well, until her talent was brought up that was usually when the date went to hell, or her date got hexed. That was when it was strikingly clear to Tonks the difference between her dates and Harry. Harry the first time he had met and found out she was a metamorphmagus, has asked only if someone cold learn the skill, not for her to change into something other than what she was. He always seemed happy with whatever she looked like and always treated her as a friend and equal, not a potential toy to play with like everyone else did.

Speaking of manipulation, she thought to herself that also brought up more upsetting thoughts about Dumbledore. She knew he had been a great leader of the light for many years and was quite powerful, but she also knew that Dumbledore also had the power to get Sirius a trial first when he was arrested, but also when he managed to escape. He did not, however and Tonks began to wonder if this also related to Harry in some way as Sirius was Harry's magical guardian and should have been by all rights, from what Sirius had told her, his legal guardian as well. All of her Hufflepuff instincts told her that something smelled about Dumbledore and to put her faith in Harry. Deciding she needed to do something about this, she left her office and went to search out Remus before taking on any course of action.

….

Narcissa Malfoy was terrified out of her mind. She had just found out only a couple of days ago that her head of house Black, Sirius, had been killed and this left her with no recourse whatsoever. She had been hoping to have Sirius annul her marriage to Lucius as head of house Black, but that was no longer possible, which left her in her own personal form of hell.

Lucius was not only manipulative and abusive, he was also sterile. He had stolen their now son and performed a blood adoption ritual to adopt baby Drako into their family. He had then forced her to also perform the adoption and to change her hair color to not make things seem odd about Drako's appearance.

The problem with the blood adoption though, was that it essentially produced a perfect carbon copy of the older version of their gender that adopted them. Thus Drako was so similar to his father that she held no feelings for the boy at all. She personally had been quite smug to find Drako in the state he was in on the Hogwarts Express only days before. She knew from his mutterings and cursing under his breath that occurred almost constantly since that time that Potter and his friends had been responsible for it. She also knew that Potter was not the boy that Drako and Lucius had portrayed to her previously. Far from being the foolish, arrogant and idiotic boy she had been told about, Potter seemed to be quite the opposite if recent events were to be believed. Such a boy as Drako and Lucius had described would not have been able to defeat a group of the highest ranking Death Eaters twice their number and come out relatively unscathed, while the Death Eaters had all been caught, save her sister, and sent to prison.

She knew that the only alternatives now for her sanctuary were Dumbledore and Potter. Dumbledore, she knew though, was not to be trusted. He had not managed to free Sirius, even though she knew he could have if he had wanted to as she knew the political power Dumbledore could wield. She also knew that Dumbledore was manipulative, since as a Ravenclaw, her skills in research were unmatched and she had followed closely the events that had occurred at Hogwarts over the years that her son had attended. She knew there was no way that a first year, no matter how brilliant, could have beaten three traps meant for the dark lord and then defeat the dark lord himself, if they were not meant to. She also knew that Dumbledore had been teaching at the time of the first opening of the Chamber of Secrets and knew he would have had suspicions about the dark lord from the beginning, so the culprit would have been easy to trace, had he tried, which he obviously had not. Instead he had waited for second years to find the chamber and kill the monster within, rescuing the Weasley girl in the process and ruining her husband's reputation in the process; something which still had her laughing to herself to this day.

Narcissa knew what she must do. She had to convince Potter that he could use her services and in exchange, he would help her from her dilemma. He could be powerful, she knew, if only he took control and stood up for himself. She did not know Harry Potter though, she knew. There was a world of difference from the person portrayed in the rumors and stories and the individual, she well knew. Only time would tell if she could pledge her loyalty to this young man she decided.

….

Belatrix Lestrange lived in a world of pain and torment, thanks to her failure to retrieve the prophecy from the Department of Mysteries. The dark lord had seen fit to remove both the loyalty and Imperius curses from her and then to remind her of the terrible crimes she had committed under them followed by long stretches of time under the Cruciatus curse. What was crueler was his final act. He had told her that she could escape at any time she wished and had gone as far as ordering all Death Eaters to allow her to escape. What prevented her was the additional ward he had erected around his fortress, specifically targeted to her, should she leave. It would essentially remove any traces of the Imperius and loyalty enchantments from her body and mind, leaving her defenseless, should she ever receive a trial. The only way she knew she could negate this, she had found after extensive research, was the blood of either the dark lord of Harry Potter.

She knew Potter had no reason to help her. She had seen the pure white hot rage and pain that had suffused his face as he chased her up to the Atrium. The look in his eyes broke her heart and had given her the strength to break the Imperius, but the loyalty enchantments had forced to keep firing spells at him. She didn't know if he would help her, but knew he was her only hope.

….

Albus Dumbledore was not a happy person. Two weeks before he had told the Potter boy the prophecy and said boy then promptly then destroyed most of his priceless magical items, including the items which monitored his movements and kept a damper on his power. The boy was way too powerful for his own good; he had nearly melted the device that dampened his magic when he conjured his first patronus in third year. Dumbledore knew the boy had the potential to destroy the carefully constructed society Dumbledore had created since his defeat of Grindlewald and even had the potential to become an even more powerful dark lord than Tom, even with the power block he had put on him as a small child. He was vastly relieved that Black did not have enough time to influence the boy too much before he died. Now that Potter was alone again he had sent him directly back to his relatives, so they could break him some more, physically and emotionally and make him even more manageable in the future.

It was at this point that his Phoenix, Fawkes appeared in a flash of fire and landed on his desk. It had only been a few days since the creature had recovered from eating a death curse at the Ministry and Dumbledore smiled at his companion and said

"Ah Fawkes, please sing for me a little to soothe this man's frayed nerves."

Fawkes looked deep into Dumbledore's eyes for a moment and then chirped, as if talking to the aged headmaster. He chirped once more and then rising disappeared in a ball of flame.

'Stupid bird' Dumbledore thought to himself as his eyes continued to look at the place where Fawkes had disappeared. He then looked down and noticed something gold and glowing on his desk. Dumbledore knew what it was as soon as he laid eyes on it and tears began to run from his eyes as he remembered the text he had read on the Phoenix. Usually the Phoenix will keep its droppings within itself and it burns up with the creature each month. The only time a Phoenix dropping will be seen, is when the Phoenix feels that its bonded companion has strayed so far from the path that the Phoenix initially bonded with the companion for, that it is left as a symbol that the creature has broken all ties with the companion.

It was this state, bawling like a baby, that Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape and Alistair Moody found Albus Dumbledore in as they entered his office. The two teachers seemed confused, as did Moody, until his rotating eye fell upon the dropping left on the headmaster's desk. He then began laughing uproariously, leaving the two teachers accompanying him even more confused. His voice suffused with rage as well as pain, Dumbledore asked

"What do you find so funny Alistair?"

Moody quieted instantly and his eye took on a serious look as he stumped forward one more step and growled

"I told you for quite a while now Albus you were going about this all wrong and you refused to listen. Will you now refuse to listen to the purest creature of light?"

With these words he turned and stumped out of the office, still snorting laughter softly, the other two following behind him, now uncertain as to what the golden object sitting on Albus desk represented. They would have to ask him to get an accurate idea of what was going on.