A.N.- Thanks for all the reviews, they have been fairly helpful, anyways, here's the next chapter.

Chapter 13: End of Summer, The Rat, Dementors

"Yo loverboy, you've made the front page." Roger said with a large grin as he tossed a copy of the Daily Prophet to a wet haired Harry, who had just finished changing into more comfortable clothes after his shower.

He groaned when he saw it was the new Butterbeer advertisement,

"Damn Harry, you're so lucky, everyone with an ounce of brains know that Ashley Taylor has the hottest ass of any model." Jeremy Bale said as he sipped his Butterbeer on the large dinner table.

"Men…." Nicole Hartman snorted in the seat next to the American born Englishman, flicking strands of dark brown hair from the front of her face as she glared annoyingly at all the male organisms in the room with her dark brown eyes, which pretty much was everyone. As the captain of the Hollyhead Harpies, she was retained on the team since she scored 290 points in their first practice session and had impressed the boss to keeping her on the team, along with her was her fellow club teammate and reserved goalkeeper, Cassandra Hill; who wasn't pleased to be Daniel Jones' backup but had to relent when he saved more penalties than she did, they were the only two women on the team.

"What? It's not our fault that we were built to submit to the opposite sex." Jeremy retorted.

"Too right you are, dear brother of mine." His identical twin Jason quipped.

"I heard dear Harrikens had the chance of getting acquainted with Ms. Ashley not too long ago." Jeremy commented, drawing loud sniggering from Elan from the sofas, he was busy reading a copy of '100 most desirable Quidditch Players 1992-93"

"They did more than that." He snickered and yelped when a baseball narrowly missed him.

"Be careful with that! I got that for my tenth birthday." Jason said as he quickly went to retrieve his prized possession, causing his twin to laugh incessantly.

"Just drop it, there is nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, between us. It was just an advertisement, why is the whole world thinking that there's a relationship." Harry grumbled and walked towards his room, much to the dismay of the twins, who very much wanted to tease him more about it.

Coach Ray Andersen later surprised the squad at dinner when he announced that all the players on the team will be receiving a Firebolt, the new prototype broom that was said to be superior to the Nimbus 2001 in every way.

Half an hour later, Puddlemere United's empty stadium was lightened by its glorious lights, sounds of broomsticks accelerating along with joyful laughter and shouts that echoed throughout the summer night.

"This broom is amazing, one hundred and fifty miles per hour, Nimbus' going to have a tough time competing with this baby." Roger whistled as he held the Firebolt much like a mother would hold her first-born child. Harry just chuckled when he imagined the picture of Roger taking the Firebolt to bed with him, when the others looked questioningly at him, he just waved them off with a hand.

Harry had mixed feelings when he entered his room and took out his loyal Nimbus 2000 that had never failed him,"This was my first broom, the start of my dreams." He thought as he ran a hand down the handle, he would keep and cherish it forever; originally Sirius had wanted to buy the broom for him but he had rejected the proposal because he loathed people giving him charity.

After thoroughly polishing both his Nimbus for the last time and his newly acquired Firebolt, Harry changed into his nightclothes and slipped into unconsciousness as he pulled the covers over him. The atmosphere during breakfast the following day was melancholy and surprisingly quiet. Ray Anderson stood up at the middle of their meal at the head of the long, well furnished dinner table and praised the entire team for their performances in addition to their positive attitudes and finally, he informed the team to stay fit and refrain from partying too much; he glared seriously at his three chasers as he enunciated his last point, which caused the three of them to look back at him innocently.

After biding his fellow teammates goodbye, Harry slipped on the ring portkey and disappeared into the earth with a swirl. He sighed as he appeared once again back at Potter Manor, not looking forward in going inside, Harry walked around the manor and laid on his back in the backyard, staring at the calm blue sky when suddenly he saw the cute face of a little girl with long flaming red hair shrouding her face, staring down at him adoringly.

"Hawwy!" Before he could comprehend what was happening, Rosy had jumped him, landed on his stomach and began giving him sloppy wet kisses to his face. For once, Harry laughed happily as he tickled the little redhead mercilessly, ignoring her cries of mercy. It was tough work balancing between spending time with his sister and playing the role of an International Quidditch Superstar.

Throughout the next few days, Harry had to participate in several more advertisements, mainly on promoting the Firebolt, along with Elan, Roger, Cedric, Nicole Hartman, and the famous Bulgarian Seeker, Viktor Krum.

"You all flew very vell and in the qualifiers as vell. I expect to see you all in the Final this summer." Krum commented in heavily accented English after they were finished and left in a rush with a tall man with a goatee, all the English players took the challenge seriously, Ray had told them that Bulgaria had won all their Qualifiers as well and was placed above England to win the World Cup.

"You really think Bulgaria's going to be in the Final this year?" Cedric asked as they climbed into the Malfoy limo.

"With Krum, they have a huge chance, he's been voted Best Seeker for three years in a row, while Ceddy here is the runner up." Roger answered with a bit of unease in his voice, taking a seat.

"They may have Krum but we have the best chasers in the whole world as well as two beaters that can very well be pass as telepaths. I still can't believe we qualified!" Elan said excitedly as he closed the limo door.

Harry just smiled as he listened to the conversation until Elan pulled out a copy of Teen Witch Weekly and said with a shit eating grin that Harry instantly want to pound off, "Here Harry, I thought you might find something interesting in there, Anna showed me this yesterday."

Roger, Elan and Cedric sniggered as they saw their friend's hand turn whiter and whiter.

Harry couldn't believe his eyes as he stared at the header, "England Star Chaser and The American Model." Beneath it was a moving, clear picture of Ashley Taylor in her red spaghetti strap dress and him kissing furiously at the French Minister's party not too long ago.

He swore under his breath and tossed the magazine back to Elan without reading the article. "Bloody hell, one snog and it comes biting me back in the arse." Harry muttered dryly.

"Quit sulking Harry, this is something to be proud of. You snogged Ashley Taylor, two time winner of the Most Beautiful Witch Pageant." Cedric exclaimed, making his three friends to stare incredulously at him.

"What?" He asked.

"Better not let Chang hear that you've been complimenting other girls, you wouldn't want to spend the entire school year hospitalized in the Hospital Wing." Roger said through his laughter, causing the Hufflepuff to blush bright red, Cho was known to be rather 'strict' towards her boyfriend; even more so since his induction into the England National Team.

The limo stopped next to The Leaky Cauldron and after slipping on their shades, the door was opened by an elderly looking man dressed in a tuxedo and a black chauffeur hat, who said with a slight bow

"We have arrived, Master Malfoy."

"Thank you Al, I think we need about an hour and a half." Elan replied and stepped out of the limo followed by Harry, Roger and Cedric.

"Hey Elan, how come the muggles aren't drawn to the limousine?" Roger asked as they entered,

"That is because father charmed it so that only people who are magical could see it." The blonde chaser replied and stopped suddenly and began to chuckle, "No way..."

"What?" Cedric asked. Elan just started to snigger loudly as he pointed to a large moving poster of Harry with his arms locked around the petite form of Ashley Taylor, who held in her hand a bottle of Butterbeer.

"Wow! Damn, check THOSE out! All Natural. You're so lucky Harry." Roger said taking his shades off for a clearer look but yelped when Harry clamped his hand on the scruff of his t-shirt and hauled his protesting arse through the mostly empty bar with an amused Cedric and Elan behind him. All remarks and teasing comments were instantly when they saw Harry giving them the infamous 'Snape Death Glare.'

Soon they found themselves walking into Flourish and Blotts for their sixth year books which included:

The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 6) by Miranda Goshawk

Advanced Potion-Making by Libatius Borage

Confronting The Faceless by Quentin Trimble

Guide to Advanced Transfiguration by Emeric Switch

Successfully keeping a low profile, the four walked out the bookstore with their books in their bags. After taking a trip at the Apothecary and Madam Malkins', they had to shiver slightly at that, the shop assistants there had stares that they didn't especially feel comfortable receiving.

Then they just hung out at Florean Fortsecue's Ice Cream Parlour, unfortunately; they attracted a lot of attention, like sighed as witches crowded around their table, they signed autographs, took pictures and conversed to their fans. However, Harry was surprised to see that his fans were more subdued when facing him, probably because of that article regarding him and Ashley; he was actually feeling thankful towards the dark haired beauty for lessening the enthusiasm of his fans.

After signing the last autograph, Harry was surprised to see a bushy haired girl waving wildly at him with both hands.

"Hey Hermione, here for some school material shopping?" Harry asked once she got close enough, she was wearing leg hugging jeans and a red Ryan Giggs t-shirt.

She nodded and after saying a quick hi to the other three teens replied, "I'm so excited, and this year I can take elective classes."

"Oh yeah? Which two are you taking?" Harry asked curiously.

"Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Ancient Runes." Was her reply.

Raising an eyebrow, Harry said "Hmm, there might be a problem with the class schedule as some of those classes overlap each other."

"Not really, some people had time turners so that they could take all the electives." Elan replied from his Vanilla Ice Cream Butterbeer float. Due to a shock look that appeared on her face, Harry assumed that it was what Hermione would be doing.

"Well have fun with that, I never liked using time turners." He said.

"And you took the O.W.L.S for them?" Hermione asked skeptically.

"Yeah… for Runes, Divination and Muggle Studies, I just did studying outside the class and took them at the Ministry." Harry replied with a shrug.

Then looking at his watch Harry mumbled, "I would really want to talk more but I have to return home, so see you on the train hopefully?"

Hermione just gave him her special suffocating, bone-crushing hug and beamed brightly at him as the group walked away. T

he last days of his summer were spent around the manor, reading the books he had bought and playing with his ever adorable little sister, which pleased her to no end.

He was hardly surprised when his O.W.L.S results arrived, an unknown black feathered owl, no doubt a Ministry owl flew perched itself on the windowsill outside Harry's room and started pecking at the glass window. Temporarily halting the letter he was writing to Fleur, he opened the window and retrieving the envelope from the bird's mouth, Harry gave it some owl treats as well as a

bowl of water. Tearing open the envelope on his bed this was what he received.

Dear Mr. Harry James Potter,

Below are your O.W.L.S results for the following classes:

Passing GradesFailing Grades

O = Outstanding P = Poor

E = Exceeds Expectations D = Dreadful

A = Acceptable T = Troll

Ancient Runes = E

Arithmancy = O

Astronomy = O

Care of Magical Creatures = O

Charms: Theory = O/Practical = O

Defence Against the Dark Arts: Theory = O/Practical = O

Divination= E

Herbology = O

History of Magic = O

Muggle Studies = O

Potions: Theory = O/Practical = O

Transfiguration: Theory = O/Practical = O

Congratulations Mr. Potter, you have attained twelve O.W.L.S

Harry scanned his results and without a second glance tossed it aside much to the amusement of Rina who let out a shrill cry of amusement.

"I take it that you did well." She sang while leaving her porch by her companion's bed and onto his chest.

"Ten Outstandings and two Exceeds Expectations." He replied through their bond, caressing his familiar's incredibly soft-feathered wing. Rina sang a melodious note and under her beautiful song, Harry fell into deep sleep.

The next morning, Harry was woken up violently by a cold jet of water shot straight at his face by a grinning Sirius. Harry wasn't amused to say the least by his wake up call and shot a wandless tooth engorgement charm on the dog animagi who screeched and scurried out like girl who's make up had been ruined just before prom.

Grumbling, Harry got out of bed and went into the bathroom. After fitting himself in his favorite pair of black skinny jeans, a grey t-shirt and a thin black blazer, Harry walked down the stairs with his luggage already packed and shrunk; Rina was perched on his shoulder, her magnificent head drooping.

He was surprised to see only Little Rosy and Sirius waiting for him, the tooth engorgement charm seemed to have been rectified.

Sensing his thoughts, Sirius said "I wanted to take you and Rose out for lunch before getting to King's Cross." Harry grinned and gave a nod at his familiar who disappeared in flames and with an adorable redhead on his shoulders along with his godfather walked out of the manor. Soon they found themselves comfortably eating in a McDonalds close to King's Cross Station, Little Rosy was giggling as she watched her favorite brother and godfather challenge each other in a Big Mac-eating contest, any polite pureblood etiquette all but forgotten.

"That was a fine meal." Sirius said with a burp as they left, causing Harry to roll his eyes. After checking his watch, the trio arrived at King's Cross Station, suddenly a flier caught Harry's eye as they ran into Platforms Nine and Three Quarters. On the flier was a rather plump, rat faced man, he was heavily shackled.

The heading read, "PETER PETTIGREW BROKE OUT OF AZKABAN!"

"Sirius! Have you seen this?" Harry said with panic in his voice for once, despite his highly trained Occlumency skills.

Immediately, Sirius' cheerful attitude was gone, "That double crossing son of a bitch! Ooops…I forgot, my bad." He growled, but quickly quashed it when he saw Harry covering Little Rosy's ear with a crossed look on his face, Little Rosy just looked up at her brother with her adorable big green eyes.

"Yeah I heard it, a fellow friend came by at seven this mourning, said that Wormtail had wormed his sorry fat ar- that he escaped sometime before dawn. Apparently he transformed into his rat form when a cellmate close to his was given the Dementor's kiss." Sirius explained as they neared the Hogwart's Express.

"Do the Aurors have any leads of where he might go?" Harry asked as they walked.

Sirius shook his head in response, "He could be anywhere, he's a rat; he could have easily stolen away on a ship or something and out of the country for all we know."

But his mood brightened when he saw Narcissa waving at him at a secluded corner near the front of the Train. Narcissa gave Harry the usual warm, loving hug before moving to Little Rosy who just giggled cutely as Narcissa commented on her growth.

"Hey Harry, you heard about Pettigrew breaking out?" Elan asked, he was dressed in a simple white t-shirt and much to Lucius' Malfoy's disapproving look, blue jeans that had several slashes on them.

Harry nodded but didn't say anything, after promising Little Rosy that he'll be back real soon and that he would bring a lot of candy, she released her python grip around his legs with a tear stained face. After giving the little redhead a final kiss on the forehead, a manly embrace from Sirius and a last hug and handshake from Narcissa and Lucius respectively, Harry bolted into the train with Elan and Draco.

"What the-?" Harry said with surprise when he walked pass the train corridor.

"It seems that by copying your hairstyle, people would think they can date supermodels." Elan said teasingly and sidestepped out of the way when Harry suddenly turned around to punch him.

"Okay, this is my compartment, see ya at the feast big bro, Harry." Draco said as they arrived at a compartment. He opened the door, inside was Ernie MacMillan, Padma Patil, Daphne Greengrass, Blaise Zabini; who blushed bright red when she saw Harry at the compartment door. What surprised Harry the most was seeing Hermione there also.

"Harry!" She exclaimed.

"Hey Hermione, just passing by." Harry said,

"And making sure little Drakey makes it into his compartment." Elan teased, causing the younger Malfoy to flush.

"Shut up, I'm not a five year old anymore." He said, more like whined.

Elan just sniggered, ruffled his neatly gelled hair and said, "Sure you're not, let's go Harry, better find Roger."

With that, the tall Slytherin prefect walked off, Harry just gave a nod to Hermione and politely closed the compartment door. He just smiled as he heard Hermione argue with Padma Patil that she was not into older men.

Soon they found their usual compartment near the head of the train. "What took you so long?" Roger asked from his game of Wizard's Chess with Cedric.

"Mother made me accompany her little baby Drakey to his compartment." Elan replied, eliciting loud laughter from all the four sixth year students, Harry was relieved when he saw Rina nuzzling herself with her beak. They were in their third game of goldfish when suddenly the train jerked to halt.

"What happened?" Roger asked as Cedric stuck his head out of the compartment doors.

"Nothing out of the ordinary." The Hufflepuff replied and shut the door close.

"Why do I get a feeling that we're being watched?" Harry commented as he looked out the window. The slowly, the lights were shut off, leaving them in nearly pitch black darkness.

"Something foul has just entered the train! And its heading this way!" Rina screeched to him and with horror, Harry watched the pumpkin juice he had been drinking slowly turn into ice.

"Only one type of creature could have this effect." He thought as he pulled out his wand. He then heard a loud scream, slowly opening the compartment doors and ignoring the whimpering of his friends to stay in the compartment.

Harry stepped into the dark corridor and whispered, "Lumos!" A powerful orb of light appeared at the end of his wand, slowly walking forwards, the feeling got worse, all traces of happiness seemed to have escaped the very core of him.

It confirmed his suspicions as he saw a black cloak floating towards him, the helms of the cloak fluttering even though there was no wind inside the train, its hand scabby and sickening.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry incanted and a silver phoenix, Rina, her entire body in silvery flames, squawked loudly and flew dead straight at the Dementor, hitting it full force as it gave a loud sound of discomfort and keeping his Patronus intact, Harry purged the sickening abomination from the train door.

He saw another flash of silvery midst not too far away in a compartment and watched as the second Dementor was banished back outside the train.

A heavily robed figure then stepped outside to the corridor and immediately locked eyes with Harry, who instinctively drew his wand back in a dueling position. Then the lights returned and Harry was beyond shocked to see Remus Lupin smiling proudly at him. Harry slid his wand back in its holster.

"Hello Harry, beautiful Patronus you have there, as usual." Lupin said tiredly.

"Thanks Uncle Moony, you deserve some credit, after all you taught me that spell… what are you doing here?" Harry asked, a little puzzled, unaware that many students were staring at him with awe through the glass windows on the compartments.

"That's Professor Lupin to you now, Mr. Potter. I've been given the Defense post." Lupin replied with a wide grin.

"Wow, finally a teacher who doesn't have Voldemort infested in the back of his head or a total pansy. About time." Harry replied as he gave Lupin a crushing hug.

"Careful there. You're not exactly five years old anymore." Lupin replied as Harry released his grip. "I heard from Padfoot that you've been seen with a lovely girl. The Butterbeer poster at the leaky cauldron was well done." Lupin said teasingly, making Harry palm his face.

"Not you too…" He groaned.

Then together they walked to the head of the train, "Why did the Dementors appear on the Hogwart's Express?" Harry asked.

"They're searching for Pettigrew, there are rumors that he might sneak into Hogwarts to assassinate your brother, on that note Dumbledore has issued the Ministry to place Dementors at the edge of the Hogwart's grounds. I don't trust him, watch your back Harry." Lupin said gravely as he squeezed Harry's shoulder gently before letting him go back inside his compartment.

"Harry what was it?" Roger asked as Cedric and Elan were also having curious looks on their faces.

"It was a Dementor, apparently looking for Pettigrew." Harry said softly and proceeded to explain everything Lupin told him to his three friends.

"WHAT? Dumbledore's gone mental, Dementors on the grounds." Roger exclaimed. Harry only nodded, and massaged his head.

"Since that brat arrived, there hasn't been a normal year." He thought as he stared out into the rainy land.

Soon in a less than cheerful mood, the four changed into their uniforms, exited the train and as usual, Cedric went running to Cho to get some alone time while Harry, Elan and Roger took another carriage up to the castle.

"So have any ideas who might be our new Defense teacher?" Roger asked. Harry just smiled as he pulled out his prefect badge and placed it slightly above the Ravenclaw House Crest. Elan shook his head, they then discussed about their O.W.L.S results, no one was surprised when Harry had the most O.W.L.S.

"Here we go." Harry mumbled as they entered the magnificently furnished Great Hall, candles floating in the air. As soon as he entered, he could feel nearly the entire female population staring at him and Elan and Roger, who were following his lead; apparently, qualifying for the World Cup had only escalated their fame.

Keeping his face emotionless, Harry took a seat next to Elena Turpin, Roger took the seat next to him while a very flushed looking Cho took the seat opposite of them.

"So, my dear precious Elena…how many O.W.L.S did you get?" Harry asked as he totally ignored the sorting and smirked when he saw his longtime academic rival blush mildly, her younger sister Lisa just giggled uncontrollably as she saw her usually calm sister losing her cool.

"I got ten." Elena replied quietly.

"Wow, that's great." Harry replied sincerely and Elena was surprised that he didn't try to act superior towards her like his usual self. Before she could ask about his results, Harry clapped enthusiastically when Dumbledore introduced Lupin as the new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher, Snape was emotionless the entire time but his face held no hostility compared to the look he still gives James Potter.

"Wow, Lupin's our new Defense teacher, finally we get a decent teacher who knows what to do." Roger said to Harry who just smiled and nodded. The Hogwarts Headmaster then clapped his hands and food, plates and utensils appeared on the tables. Harry had to suppress his frustration from overloading as people near him continued to ask about Quidditch or his so called 'relationship' with Ashley Taylor.

Then at the end of dessert, Dumbledore warned all students about the Dementors and dismissed them, the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs shoving each other to get out first as always while the Ravenclaws and Slytherins watched and waited patiently.

Then as prefects, Harry and Elena left the Great Hall with a bunch of awed short first years in tow. He nodded at Elan who merely gave a haughty salute as he walked out, he could feel Lupin and Dumbledore's staring at the back of his head.

After explaining and showing the first years on how to get into the common room along with answering some questions, he went straight to the boy's dormitories and after deactivating the multiple locking charms and repelling wards he had placed on his suitcase, took a fast shower, brushed his teeth and changed into a silk short sleeved shirt along with some black silk pajama bottoms. Harry said a quick good night to Roger and promptly crawled under his bedcovers, shut the nightlight on the small drawer next to his four-poster bed and fell asleep.