The group quickly left the grounds of the orphanage and followed the wall around to a deserted ally.

"Ok everyone, gather round," Mr Weasley said, motioning everybody close.

Sirius quickly transformed, touching the offered book. They all felt the tug behind their navels, but only Sirius and Remus noticed the look of pure panic on Harry's face as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut as the portkey was activated.

Due to the sheer number of them, all but Arthur fell over when they reached their destination.

"Ok you lot. Follow me," Arthur said, charming Harry's trunk to float along behind him.

"You go ahead Arthur. Remus and I want to talk to Harry for a few minutes," Sirius said, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder so that he couldn't leave.

Ron and Harry exchanged looks, knowing that phrase never led to good things.

"OK. Come on." Arthur led the group away, leaving Harry, Sirius and Remus standing on a beach.

"Where are we?" Harry asked, partially out of curiosity and partly hoping to ward off whatever lecture was coming.

"We're in Italy, on Dumbledore's private beach. Now, why were you so panicked about using the portkey?" Remus asked, not allowing Harry to change the subject.

"The Third Task. The cup was a portkey. That was the last time I used one," Harry explained, looking anywhere but at the remaining Marauderers, who were silently kicking themselves due to their own stupidity.

"Sorry, we weren't thinking," Sirius apologised, knowing it wouldn't make a difference.

"It's ok. I'm a lot less jumpy than I was and I need to get used to it seeing as I can't Apperate and I hate floo even more. Was that all you wanted to talk about?" Harry asked, wondering what all the fuss was about.

"What happened with the Dursleys?"

"They'd had enough of everything. Me, owls, pranks, Hogwarts. And then there was that whole Aunt Marge thing, as well as everything from previous years." Realising he'd left himself open for questioning about his first 2 years, he quickly amended, "You know, Dobby, Quiddich and Hagrid!"

"What does Marge have to do with anything?" Remus asked, confused.

"Uncle Vernon's sister, Aunt Marge was laying into my parents and I got really mad and she um… blew up, like a balloon," Harry explained. "I didn't mean to do it but Uncle Vernon got really upset!"

"And they didn't realise that it was all her fault?" Sirius's eyes were wide as he asked.

"No," Harry snorted, trying to suppress his laughter.

"Muggles," growled Sirius, whilst Lupin just stood there shaking his head, unconvinced about Harry's explanation.

"Anything left to discuss?" Harry asked, anxious to leave the current conversation behind.

"Why do you avoid mentioning your first two years at Hogwarts around us?"

Harry silently cursed, wishing that Remus wasn't so damn observant.

"No real reason." Harry worked hard to keep his voice innocent. "Nothing of great interest really happened."

"What was with that comment about climbing trees?" Sirius' change of subject completely derailed both Harry and Moony.

"What comment?"

"You told… Kim?... not to climb any trees. Why?"

"Your mind works in strange ways Padfoot!" Lupin laughed, turning to Harry and ushering him towards the Villa.

"Kim can climb up trees but not down, so I always have to go up after her."

"Why doesn't her brother get her down?" Lupin wondered.

"He's scared of heights!"

"So how are you?" Sirius suddenly changed the subject. This tactic meant that Harry had no time to think up a lie and had no choice but to tell the remaining Marauders the truth.

"Tired." Harry realised what he had said too late.

"Why?"

"How much do you already know?" Harry retaliated.

"We know you've been having nightmares, and I could probably guess what about, but I'm not totally sure," replied Sirius, glad that Harry was beginning to open up.

"The Third Task, and what I heard when I went near Dementors."

"Which is?" Sirius asked, not knowing as Remus did.

But Harry refused to elaborate, changing the conversation, if not as subtly, then at least as effectively as Sirius himself had.

"Do you know who our new DADA teacher is going to be this year? Or how long they intend to stay?"

"Harry…" Sirius trailed off, knowing that trying to force the issue wouldn't help at all. "As far as I know the job has only been taken for this year, mainly to give your year a decent shot at your OWLs."

"As long as they don't try to kill me, they can't really go wrong. Unless they're like Lockheart, I suppose."

By this time they had reached the Villa, which prevented Sirius or Remus from enquiring about that last comment as Harry was quickly pulled aside by Ron and Hermione, who bombarded him with questions about his holiday, how he was and what the private conversation had been about.

The next two weeks of the summer holidays passed in a blur of fun, pranks and sports. Harry and Hermione had taught the Weasleys, Remus and Sirius how to play football, which had resulted in some very funny 5-a-side games, including Sirius turning into Padfoot and chasing the ball, especially when his team was loosing.

Several Quiddich games had also been played, with Harry making all the adults panic when he successfully pulled off a Wronski Feint. Pranks had followed for days afterwards, until Harry had finally confronted Sirius, telling him that Harry had been in perfect control the whole time and that he had done several reckless things as a Marauder. This had led to Sirius grumbling about know-it-all kids, while Moony just sat there and laughed at his friend.

They had all been thrilled to find that Dumbledore's Villa had a heated outdoor pool, and everyone found excuses to take advantage of it as often as possible. So it came as a surprise to no one to find the trio out by the pool celebrating the arrival of their Hogwarts Letters. While most would not view this event as worthy of celebration, the three friends would take any excuse to celebrate. All three had made it to their fifth year and Hermione had been named prefect, as had Ron, much to his shock and his mother's delight. They were lounging around in the shallow end of the pool chatting about who they thought their new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor was going to be when a big, inflatable beach ball flew over their heads, followed swiftly by Padfoot, who sent a great wave splashing over the 3 teenagers.

"Sirius!" Harry exclaimed, glaring at the Grim sized dog, who just offered him a canine grin and continued swimming for the ball. Harry exchanged a grin with Ron and Hermione before racing after his godfather.

Once Harry realised that he couldn't beat Sirius to the ball the trio started throwing water at the dog, knowing that in order to retaliate Sirius would have to change back, giving Harry the advantage. Sure enough Sirius turned back into himself and began to splash back, allowing Harry to reach the ball first. The three teens ended up playing piggy-in-the-middle, with Sirius desperate to get the ball. After about twenty minutes of this, in which Moony was constantly laughing, the war was ended with the three teens the obvious victors.

It was at this point that Sirius realised that he was still standing in his robes. He waded over to the side and hauled himself out.

Harry, Ron and Hermione followed his lead and slipped T-shirts and shorts on, joining the Marauders for a walk on the beach to dry off.

"Do either of you know who our new DADA professor is going to be?" Ron asked with all his usual tact.

Remus and Sirius just grinned as Hermione hit Ron on his head.

"Hey! That hurt!" he protested.

"That was completely tactless Ron!"

"Dumbledore's found someone, but only for the year, they're worried about the curse," Sirius explained.

"The jobs not cursed!" protested Hermione indignantly.

"So why doesn't he offer it to other previous teachers apart from Moony?"

"Um… ones dead, ones lost their soul, one is in St. Mungo's and one is back in retirement," Harry replied, not really thinking about what he was saying, with his mind on other things.

He came back down to earth when Ron and Hermione both hit him round the head.

"Hey! What was that for?" he demanded, rubbing his head.

"How did that happen to your professors?" Remus asked, suddenly understanding Harry's outburst at the end of his third year.

"Bad accidents," Harry said, unconvincingly.

"Try again," said Sirius, unwilling to believe him.

"No, really. It was all bad accidents," insisted Harry.

"Name one," challenged Sirius.

"Lockheart. He tried to use Ron's broken wand and it backfired on him."

"Ok. I'll give you that," Sirius accepted grudgingly.

Silence encompassed the group, before Hermione broke it, noticing that Harry was lost in his thoughts again.

"What are you thinking about?" she demanded.

"Huh, sorry, what did you say?" Harry asked, proving his lack of concentration.

Sirius and Remus exchanged grins as Hermione huffed and repeated her question.

"Oh nothing really," he replied, before quickly expanding after seeing the furious look on Hermione's face. "Mostly Hogwarts and the Dursleys."

"What about them?" Ron asked, knowing how Harry felt about his only relatives, even though he rarely let anyone else know.

"You know how many times…things have had the potential to go wrong at Hogwarts?" Harry asked.

Ron nodded, noticing Harry's hesitation and realising that he was talking about all their near misses with death.

"Well, I was thinking that despite all of that, it was the Dursleys that came closest to making life a living hell, and everything at Hogwarts actually got me out of that situation. Kinda ironic huh?" The two friends just looked at each other and burst out laughing, while Hermione grinned, knowing that Harry wasn't telling them everything but agreeing with his logic, and the two remaining Marauders just looked confused, but didn't have long to dwell on it before Ron asked a surprising question.

"What do you know about wandless magic?"

"Wandless magic? It's…" Remus started only to be interrupted by Sirius.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Hermione mentioned something about it and it made me curious. Should I not ask?" Ron replied defensively.

"No, I just don't expect you to ask those kinds of questions. Hermione's rubbing off on you!"

"Hey I am right here. AND I was interested in what Remus was going to say," Hermione replied in an offended tone.

"Thank you Hermione. Wandless magic is a very rare, natural ability. Some wizards believe that it depends on magical strength, others on levels of magic. The most accepted theory is that it is similar to a metamorphagus in that it can't be learnt."

"So basically, no one knows," Sirius summed up.

"Basically… yes."

"So why didn't you just say so?"

Remus just rolled his eyes, refusing to comment on his friend's impatience.

"So we can't use it to hex Mrs Norris anonymously when she next gets us in trouble," Ron groaned fictitiously, grinning at the image in his head of Filch's cat with jelly legs.

"Why would three upstanding students such as yourselves want to hex the caretaker's beloved cat?" Sirius asked grinning.

"She chased us into a room with a three headed giant dog!" Ron muttered indignantly.

"A what?"

Both Hermione and Harry glared at Ron as Lupin heard the mutter and alerted Sirius to the issue as well.

"Umm… A giant three-headed dog," Ron repeated, looking like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.

"Why was there a three headed dog in Hogwarts and who did it belong to?" Sirius asked, concerned about what his godson got up to at school.

"Who at Hogwarts would have a giant three headed dog?" Lupin said rhetorically.

"A three headed dog called fluffy," Harry added.

"FLUFFY! Hagrid called it Fluffy?" Sirius shook his head for a moment and then grinned. "No, I can't even act surprised. So why was it in the castle?"

Ron and Hermione looked at each other and then at Harry, refusing to tell Harry's guardian about their run-ins with Voldemort.

"He was helping to guard the Philosopher's stone during out first year at Hogwarts," Harry said simply, not giving any of the details he knew Sirius was looking for.

"The Philosopher's stone? Start at the beginning and tell me everything!" Padfoot demanded, hoping that Harry wouldn't skip anything.

Harry looked at Sirius, mentally debating whether his godfather could handle everything that had happened to him without overreacting.