Disclaimer: What I own, I own. What I don't, I don't. I make no claims to the Harry Potter universe, it belongs to JKR. What you recognize is hers, what you don't is either mine or you've been living under a rock for years.

It's MY Life

Chapter 4

Harry walked slowly around the grounds of his families estate reflecting on the changes that had happened so far. It had been a little less then six years since he came back and today was his seventh birthday. Sometimes the amount of changes shocked him. They had all started innocently enough but, when taken together, were staggering in their sheer amount. He walked around, simply letting his feet take him where they wished, absently twirling his wand in his hand.

Take, for example, his first action. To save his parents. That had seemed pretty straight forward to him at the time and gave him the advantage of a life with his parents, something he had always wanted more than anything. He marveled at the ripples that had spread from just that one, seemingly benign action. Saving his parents had, logically, given them more years to live their lives. What he hadn't even thought of before, was that by extending their lives, he would be gaining siblings. He now had a brother and three sisters! With at least one more on the way! The thought of his larger family always brought a smile to his face. An actual family of his own! He wasn't the last of the Potters any more. First had come his sister, Rose Emma, born a little less than a year after he came back on June 11th 1982. His mother had insisted on a flower name, stating that it was a tradition in her family for girls. Harry had been amazed and captivated by her the moment she had arrived in the world. He played with her and kept her company whenever he wasn't with his Hermione, and no one could miss how fiercely protective of her he was. After Rose came his little brother, John Daniel, born August 5th 1983. Then there were the twins Alyssa Amelia and Jasmine Joy, born July 15th 1984, according to his mum she had let his dad pick the middle names for the twins, she had no problem with Amelia but Joy made sure any name in the future got her approval first. This next soon to be Potter, they hoped would be born before the September 1st cutoff date for Hogwarts but weren't to concerned if it didn't happen.

It amazed him that one simple little thing could be such a big change. The thought mostly crept into his head when he was sitting at the dinner table or in the middle of the night when one of his siblings woke up screaming when they were babies. Such a simple thing, one change in his past and his future spread out to encompass so much more. He loved his family dearly and he made sure they knew it each and every time.

He gazed off into the distance at the house there. That was another of the changes he influenced by coming back. It was the house belonging to the Grangers. The house was built on the Potter grounds, far enough away from the manor for privacy but close enough that a five minute walk would bring you to the front door. After the body of Tommy boy was discovered at their Godric's Hallow home, the Potters had decided to move back to their ancestral home. No one could bring down the field surrounding the body and no one could penetrate it either. Harry smiled ruefully every time he thought of it. He had poured enough magic into that field for it to stay active for the next twenty years. That should be plenty enough time for him to find and destroy the remaining horcruxes. When that happened, he hoped that the shade that was trapped inside the field and he suspected was still hiding inside the body since it couldn't escape, would simply disappear since it had nothing holding it to this plane any longer. Ah well. No sense worrying about it now since I can't do anything for a few more years yet.

Before they could move back though, James had went to Gringotts and asked the Goblins to ward the property to the best of their ability. The Goblins had, of course, complied since the better they did the greater their profit was. The only place that had better wards now was Hogwarts and Gringotts itself. The wards on the property were actually better than Hogwarts at the moment because the school's wards weren't fully activated all of the time and the Potter wards were.

They had to impose on the Grangers for an extra two weeks while the wards were set up but that actually turned into another blessing as the two families became great friends. Once the new wards were up, James and Lily brought Harry to the manor and keyed him into the wards as well. The first night there Harry apparated out and into Hermione's bed again. His disappearance caused panic from his parents when they woke the next morning to find him gone. The Grangers were surprised to find him sleeping with their daughter again but had no way to contact the Potters to let them know he was there. Three hours after they discovered that he was missing from his room, Lily finally showed up seeking comfort from Emma while James was still looking for him with Sirius. Her shock at finding her son in a playpen with Hermione was comical to Harry and he made sure to file the memory away under his "most funny" collection. And so that pattern had continued for months. They would wake up to find Harry gone and then go to the Grangers to pick him up. They couldn't actually stop him from doing it. They didn't want to leave the safety of the wards and they couldn't remove Harry from the keystone or else he wouldn't be able to enter. After much time and thought this lead to James proposing to build a house for the Grangers on the grounds so they wouldn't have to worry about Harry. They waved away the objections of the Grangers saying that it would be too expensive stating that if their son and daughter were actually married then it would make them family. Potters always took care of family and this way they and Hermione would be safe if and when the information about the bond ever became public knowledge. This of course halted Dan and Emma's objections because, as parents, there was nothing they wouldn't do to keep their child safe. So the house was built and Dan, Emma and Hermione were keyed to the wards, with Dan and Emma being given dedicated reusable portkeys to get from the house to their dental practice.

When Harry was five his parents took him to Diagon Alley for some shopping. They were in the bookstore when he noticed all the books about him. This observation sparked another little change. Turning to Lily he asked, "Mum, how come there are all these books about me?" That had led to the discussion about how he was famous and known as the boy who lived because of his defeat of Voldemort. Harry had been secretly furious with this because he absolutely hated his fame. Putting on his best "innocent child" expression he continued. "I thought you said it was a supposed to be a secret what I did and not to tell anyone. I thought you said only three other people beside us knew about it. How did all these books find out then?" This led to a few shocked looks between his parents as they realized he was right. Only his parents, Sirius, Remus, and Dumbledore knew about that. Those thoughts led to the goblins to find out who was behind the books, which apparently led back to Albus, which led to him no longer being welcome at Potter Manor, a hefty fine, and the complete retraction of all books about Harry Potter. They had no problem with Albus making extra galleons but refused to let it be at the expense of their son. Harry had been flying on his toy broom the first time Albus had tried to apparate onto the grounds after his access had been removed.

Harry was flying along the grounds, slowly making his way to spend time with Hermione for the day. Suddenly there was a bright flash of light somewhere above him followed by what sounded like a slap on the face. As Harry looked to the sky there was another flash of light and a loud crack just outside the gate. Harry had made his way over to see a bundled mess on the ground outside the gate. He was sitting on his broom trying to figure it out when the bundle gave out a groan. The groan was followed by movement and slowly Albus Dumbledore himself appeared out of the tangled mess.

Harry just couldn't resist having some fun at the old man's expense. "Are you all right mister?" He watched as Albus slowly stood and began to get his bearings again. "You shouldn't try to come into someone's home uninvited. My Dad says it's not polite." He then listened as he made some excuse and asked if Harry would fetch his parents so that they could talk. Harry agreed and turned around to make his way up the drive when he suddenly stopped and got off his broom to begin picking flowers. "Harry? I thought you were going to get your parents so that I may talk to them?" Harry had turned around and looked at him as if he had totally forgotten he was even there. "Oh, right, but the flowers looked pretty so I wanted to pick some for my mum since I was heading to her anyways." He then took his time, making his way slowly up they drive, apparently looking for the prettiest flowers to give to his mother. He managed to stretch a short walk out for three hours making the old man wait there the entire time. After he had given his mum the flowers and told her there was a strange old man at the gate he had stayed at the door and listened to his mother shouting at Albus. He had to silently admit to himself that his mum could probably give Molly Weasley a run for her galleons in the volume department. After that, they never saw Albus Dumbledore at Potter Manor again. As an added protection they also decided to put the grounds under a Fidelus Charm and to make James the secret keeper.

A few months later he had talked to his dad. The results from that talk led to what became, a surprisingly short time later, the first all werewolf village in Britain. Harry had walked into the library, intent on getting another book to read, when he noticed his father sitting at a desk pouring over some papers. "Hi Dad, what are you doing?"

His father looked up from the papers and smiled at him. "Just trying to take care of some family business Harry. Someday all of this will be yours and I want to make sure it's all taken care of in the best way possible."

James watched his son carefully as Harry took on, what he and Lily jokingly referred to as his "thinking hard" face. He marveled at his son, sometimes the most innocent things that turned into the best ideas came from that face. "Can I help?" At James' nod he walked over to his father and looked at all the stuff on the desk. Spotting a map of Britain with patches of red on it Harry turned to his dad and asked, "What's all the red mean?" Harry, of course already knew what it meant but he still had to act like a child.

"All those spots indicate land owned by the Potter family. Some of it's farms, or buildings, or reserves, or even nothing but wild land. It's all land owned by our family."

Harry nodded, "That's a lot of red spots then."

His dad laughed at this. "Yes it is. Right now I'm trying to figure out what to do with some of this land that no one is using right now. I'm actually thinking of selling it." James pointed to a fairly large red spot towards the northern coast.

Harry put on his "thinking hard" face again. "Why not give it to Uncle Remus so he and the other wolves can use it? Put a ward around the whole area so only wolves can enter. Then they have a safe place to go where no one will ever bother them."

That had led to some thought, which led to some talks, which led to more ideas. All of which led to the first ever all werewolf village. Since the land was owned by the Potters and the wolves didn't want to take charity, the houses and business that soon sprang up paid a small rent to use the land. It was actually turning a small profit too! Of course, the Potters, Grangers, and Sirius were always welcome at any time but they were some of the select few non wolves that could pass through the wards.

Life continued in this vein. One big, happy, living, family. The Potters and Grangers took holidays together. One of which took them to the south of France where the Potters had a villa. After Harry's sixth birthday they went there again for a surprise present for Harry and Hermione. Apparently you could legally buy a wand in France when you turned six, something the English didn't allow until you were eleven. So Harry and Hermione were taken to buy their first wands. Of course, being Harry Potter, nothing was ever as simple as that. What had begun as the trying of wands for himself and Hermione, led to custom wands being made for them both. That had taken two days, between almost a full day of trying to sort out materials for the both of them and another day for them to be made. When they returned for the completed wands and were told to try them out Harry was shocked into disbelief. Not that his own wand had promptly burst into flames from his power, he had expected that, but that Hermione's had as well! The unfortunate part of that was that it had resulted into some very nasty burns to both their hands. After the shock of burning wands had worn off, both kids had started screaming and crying from the pain of their burns. Lily had rushed over and cast a strong numbing charm on both kids before rushing them off to the French equivalent of St. Mungo's. James, Dan and Emma had stayed behind to shout at the wand maker for awhile trying to find out exactly what sort of incompetent he was. After the man had practically cried himself into a blubbering mess explaining that it shouldn't have even been possible, that the power required to cause a wand to burst into flames like that shouldn't be present in children, Harry and Hermione had both been tested for magical baselines. Normally this test was done at the start of magical schooling, the results kept to the school files and only available with the Head's permission. The Healer that was administering the burn salve tested them after finding out exactly what happened, Harry noticed that she paled considerably before walking out of the room. When his mum and dad came back in, both were almost white. They told Harry and Hermione that they couldn't use wands, that they would need staves instead. Harry already knew that he would of course, but the real shock to his system had been that Hermione would need one as well. He could only suppose that because of the bond, some power sharing was taking place.

They returned to the wand maker where they repeated the process of choosing materials. This time they were wearing some type of bracelet to help and to measure durability of the materials to see if more were needed so they didn't overload again. Harry had to chuckle to himself. He didn't consider himself some sort of super wizard but over the course of an anywhere between six and eight hundred year life, he supposed he shouldn't be that surprised. He would guess that the same would be true for the Flamels because of their sorcerers stone. Over a long enough period of time, flexing the same muscles must make them pretty big.

In the end, he and his Hermione had gotten their staves, which could shift between staff and wand size with a thought. After swearing the wand maker to secrecy they had continued on their vacation until it had been time to come home. Once they returned to the grounds of Potter Manor the adults, minus Dan and Emma of course, began training them magically. The wards around the grounds prevented the detection of their underage magic but the two children were strongly warned about even letting others know that they had wands off the grounds. Not to mention the stern talking to they'd been given about using them off the grounds unless they were in a life or death situation. Similarly chastised the two agreed not to let anyone outside family know and also agreed not to use them outside the grounds.

Brought back from his reminiscing, Harry finally noticed his surroundings. Idling marveling that every time he wandered and let his mind drift, his feet would unerringly take him straight to where ever his Hermione was. There she was, laying on a lounger by the large pool. Staring at her, he simply drank in her appearance. The still bushy brown hair, the nibbling of her bottom lip to show her concentration and the ever present book in her hands. Ever since she learned to read she had always kept a book of some type with her. He practically had to steal it from her once to get her to notice him and have some fun playing. Sirius had once joked that the worse punishment someone could give Hermione was to lock all the books in one room and to never let her go into it. He smiled as remembered that Hermione had promptly kicked his godfather in the shins for even suggesting it, though she still remembered to have fun and act like a child more often. Even in her soon to be eight year old self, she was still the woman he loved.

Grinning mischievously to no one in particular, he decided to heed his own advice and act like a kid. A quick swish and flick had Hermione slowly and gently begin to float out of her chair. She was so engrossed in her reading that she didn't even notice. When he had he five feet in the air in slowly begin to float her over the ground. He didn't even notice as Sirius came walking up to him until he spoke. "Ooo, nice one pup. You know she's going to be furious if you go through with it, right?" Still with a big grin on his face he nodded to his godfather. Sirius chuckled softly before adding, "Well, if you want to minimize the damage she'll do to you, make sure nothing happens to her book. That may be enough to let you walk again after a day or two."

Harry turned to Padfoot and winked at him. He flicked his wand again, summoning the book to him. The beginning shouts of "Hey!" turned to a startled squeak of surprise as Hermione realized she was floating in the air. Then came the expected scream of, "HARRY JAMES POTTER YOU PUT ME DOWN THIS INSTANT!" Harry raised his eyebrow at Hermione, turned to his godfather and shrugged before canceling the charm. The yelp of surprise lasted a bare second before she landed in the pool.

Hermione broke the surface of the water spluttering in indignation to see Sirius and Harry rolling on the ground clutching their ribs. They were laughing so hard there were tears coming from their eyes. They were laughing so hard they didn't notice Hermione pull her own shrunken staff from her wrist holster. They were laughing so hard they didn't notice as she began levitating them over the pool. They weren't laughing after she canceled the charm and both gave a squawk of shock before they landed in the pool with her. She gave them both a wicked grin of her own when they surfaced before waving her wand making a giant wave form to dunk them both again.

A/N Wow! I couldn't believe it when I first checked. Over 1,000 of you wonderful readers viewed the beginnings of my story in the first week alone! Thank you so very much for taking the time to read this!

I tried so very hard to make this a longer chapter just to show my appreciation. I'm not entirely happy with it but as this was only meant to be a filler chapter for some background there was only so much extra I could add before I felt that it just started to ramble.

I will admit to being a little disappointed. All those people that read this story and only 16 reviews? Even those 16 reviews had a few of the same people reviewing more than once. Come on readers! Reviews make me happy and give me warm fuzzies! Plus I'd really like to know what more people think. So please, please, PLEASE leave a review!

Next up is what people have been waiting for, I hope. Hogwarts letters and the start of school!