Disclaimer: Only in my dreams do I owe HP ... and even then I'm not totally sure. hehe

Chapter 86

"Here Albus. Deliver this to Potter."

Albus looked at Severus. "I'll hand it to him but you're going to his party."

"You're off your rocker. Black doesn't want me anywhere near the boy and I have potions to brew for the Dark Lord."

Knowing that he was just using the potions as an excuse, Albus glared at him. "Severus, for nearly two weeks now you've been depressed and angry ... and I know why that is. I am sorry that you had to kill that woman but you cannot focus on those feelings. That woman was not Lily."

"It may as well have been Lily. I did, after all, kill her as well."

"You did no such thing. Voldemort killed Lily."

"I told him about the prophecy, which led to her death!"

"And if you didn't, then Lucius Malfoy would have. You said he had been with you in the hallway after all. You're going with me. Seeing Harry will do you a world of good."

"Oh yes. Seeing my son, who doesn't know he's my son, will do wonder's for my mood," he snarled.

"C'mon Severus. While Harry is up with his friends, we'll be having an order meeting."

"Then I'll come later for that."

"Severus, you're going with me. Now. Let's go," said Albus in a tone that left no room for argument.

Severus sneered at the Headmaster but stepped into the fireplace anyway.

"Sirius, you didn't have to go to all this trouble."

"Nonsense. It wasn't any trouble at all."

Harry turned to Remus who was standing in a corner. "He says that now until he has to clean up later."

Remus laughed.

Suddenly the door bell rang. Harry ran to answer it. He smiled at all of the red heads trying to fit on the top three steps (where the Fidelius extended to). "Come in," said Harry grinning.

"Happy Birthday Harry," said Mrs. Weasley. "My, my! You've grown a foot since I've last seen you."

Harry turned red. It was true. Being fed every day had let him finally grow some. He then looked up at Ron. "Seems I'm not the only one. Hey Ron."

"Hey mate!"

"Dining rooms straight through. That's where everyone is," called out Harry above the noise.

"Uh, Harry, why is this portrait silently yelling at us?" asked George.

"Because she has a really strong silencing spell on her. Trust me. You don't want to hear what she's saying." Dumbledore had managed to silence her a couple of days prior when she had started yelling obscenities at him for no reason at all. Ever since he had done that, the house had become much more comfortable.

"Happy Birthday Harry."

"Thanks, Ginny."

As they all walked in the dining room, Ron asked, "When's Hermione getting here?"

"Her and her parents have a port key. It should be activating at 1pm."

"Is Neville coming?"

"No. His Uncle Algie is taking him somewhere for his birthday."

The floo activated and Harry went to see who it was.

"Hello Professor Dumbledore."

"Happy Birthday, my boy."

Harry then saw an invisible Snape step out of the fireplace. His eyes widened.

"Happy Birthday Potter."

"Thank you sir."

"Don't let Sirius know he's here. I'm sure you don't want any fighting on your birthday."

"Good point," Harry said chuckling.

As they were walking in the dining room, they heard a whoosh! Harry turned around to see Hermione land gracefully. 'I really need to learn to do that,' he thought.

"Hey Hermione. Where's your parents?"

"They had a dental emergency in their office so they had to go in today. They both say Happy Birthday though."

Harry smiled.

"I hear the Weasley's."

"Yep. Be careful. Fred and George can legally do magic now."

"Thanks for the warning."

By 2pm the party was in full swing. Harry, at least for a little while, forgot all about Voldemort and the threats going on in the outside world.

For the moment, he was just like any other 15-year-old boy.

There had been a funny moment when Sirius had almost sat down on an invisible Snape. Dumbledore had managed to stop him, but it had been a near miss. He could only imagine what kind of chaos that would have ended up causing. After that though, Snape had moved to a corner where he wouldn't be trampled.

Around 5pm, Harry sat down to open his presents.

"This is from Alastor and Tonks," said Sirius as he handed it over.

Harry had met Tonks at a prior order meeting. He had not met any of the other order member's in case Voldemort got inside of his head, but he had heard such a loud crash one day that he ran down the steps to see what happened. He had found her on the ground tangled around a coat rack and umbrella stand. At first, Harry thought she had dyed her hair pink, but then it changed to blue right in front of him. He had been so surprised that he nearly fell down the remaining three steps. She had then explained that she was a metamorphmagus. Ever since then he had kept plying her with questions about what she could do with her ability.

"Where are they?" asked Harry. "They said that they would be here."

"Auror business," said the Headmaster.

Harry nodded and pulled off the wrapping. "It's a book on surveillance and a book on auror training."

"The surveillance book must be from Moody," commented Remus.

Harry nodded. "He told me that he was going to get it. I thought he had forgotten."

Sirius then handed over another present. He was eventually surrounded by clothes, food, more books, pranks (from the twins, much to their mother's disapproval), and a new book bag (his had become frayed).

"This one doesn't have any name on it," said Sirius frowning.

Harry's eyes immediately went to where an invisible Snape stood. "I know who it's from."

"Are you sure, Harry?" asked Sirius warily.

"Yep." Harry tore the package open. In it was a new trunk. Remus enlarged it for him while he looked over the paper that had been on top of it. The features listed were incredible. It must have cost a small fortune.

"Professor, I don't deserve something like this," he whispered.

"Nonsense my boy. Of course you do," answered Dumbledore. The room seemed to relax when the Headmaster claimed credit for the package.

Harry let his eyes drift slightly to the right of the Headmaster and said, "thank you." It was strange of Snape to give him these sudden influxes of gifts, especially considering he had yelled at the man a month prior.

The Headmaster nodded, keeping with the ruse.

"Can I have your old trunk, mate?" asked Ron.

"Ronald!" scolded Mrs. Weasley and Hermione at the same time.

Harry chuckled. "Yep. Before you leave I'll reset the alarms and you can take it with you."

"Awesome."

By 7pm, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had meandered their way up to Harry's room. Ginny and the twins had gone home with Mr. Weasley about a half hour prior.

"You seem happy Harry," said Hermione.

"I am. I have a room of my own, food every day, and I'm not at the Dursley's. I couldn't be happier."

"Cheap of them to have an order meeting on your birthday though."

"I knew it was going to happen. My birthday is a good cover for one if you think about it."

Harry went to his wardrobe and pulled out his old trunk. He sat in the floor and started cleaning it out. He waited until neither Ron nor Hermione were looking to pull the black and silver box out and store it in the bottom of the closet. He then threw a shirt on top of it.

"I'm sure Sirius can charm these letters to read RW instead of HP."

Ron nodded. "What goes on in the order meetings?"

"No idea."

"You're not told?" asked Ron.

"I can't know anything until I learn occlumency. My scar is linked with Voldemort. Until I can block him out, once he discovers this, he could learn everything I know."

"Oh."

Harry had already explained this to both of them once. Evidently Ron didn't remember.

The order meeting had finished and most everyone had left when Sirius, Remus, Albus, Severus, Molly, and Moody heard raised voices coming from up the stairs.

They sounded like they were coming from the library.

It was Harry and he was yelling.

"Is that what you think Hermione? That all adults really have my best interests at heart?"

Those downstairs couldn't hear what was said but heard Harry's next reply.

"Do you really believe that? That all adults are trustworthy?"

Another pause.

"Well it's never worked out so wonderful for me. When I was in preschool, I was punished by the Dursley's because I let their dinner burn. I didn't get fed for a week. By the end of that week, I was so hungry that a sandwich magically appeared in front of me. I ate it as soon as I could but the person it had came from called me a thief. I told my teacher that I didn't know where it came from, that I ate it because I was hungry. I was taken to the school nurse where I told her that I hadn't ate all week."

Silence was heard where the adults downstairs assumed Ron or Hermione said something.

A humorless laugh came from Harry. "The school nurse and my aunt were friends. I got punished again with a belt and another week without food."

"You're right Hermione. It was horrible. Then of course there was my 2nd grade teacher. She was a nice lady that took interest in the fact that I had bruises on me that I couldn't properly explain. She went to the principal. The next day we had a new teacher. Turned out the principal's brother worked for my uncle. I got punished again. After that I learned to use my freakishness to hide my bruises."

His voice then lowered, making the adults in the room strain to hear any more of the conversation, but they needn't have tried, because Harry's voice drifted back down the stairs. "Oh yeah. Once I entered the Wizarding world it helped some. I believe they do what they think is best for me, and I can't fault them for that, but sometimes what they think is best for me is not what's actually best for me."

Another pause, where Ron and Hermione had replied so quietly that they couldn't be heard.

"Because the adults don't trust me or believe me!"

Downstairs, everyone was horror-struck but it seemed that Harry wasn't done. Whatever had gotten this conversation started certainly got him riled up.

"Right. Just like McGonagall believed all three of us when we told her someone was going after the Sorcerer's Stone? If we wouldn't have gone after it, Voldemort would have come back sooner.

"Then, of course, there's the fact that Ron and I told Lockhart about the Chamber of Secrets. Granted he was a fraud that tried to 'Obliviate' us, but we still told him that we knew how to rescue Ginny.

"And our third year, Hermione. You and I told Fudge that Sirius was innocent. He didn't believe us."

The adults downstairs all looked at each other. Moody had gotten up to open the door wider so that the voices would be clearer.

"Last year? I love Sirius to death but even he wrote me off last year."

Downstairs Sirius paled.

"Hermione, I told him all last year that Moody gave me the creeps, that he felt wrong to me. I was ignored because I'm only a kid. After all, what could I possibly know?"

About five seconds of silence passed.

"NO! I don't blame Sirius. The imposter fooled even Dumbledore!"

It was Dumbledore's turn to blanche. Alastor also sent a glare his way. (He was still peeved that the imposter went for so long undiscovered.)

"Harry, calm down. You're making things vibrate. It's not Hermione's fault that you had a crappy childhood. She was just trying to ..."

Ron's voice died down. Then there was silence. All of the adults down stairs just looked at each other.

"I'll kill them Albus," snarled Sirius. "How could they starve and beat Harry?"

"Oh that poor boy," said Molly. She made to leave the dining room.

"No," said Severus, stopping her. "I doubt Potter realized his voice carried down to us. He does not need coddling, nor, do I suspect, does he want coddling."

"Nonsense Severus."

"Molly, no. Severus is right. Harry will be horrified to realize we heard his argument. He is obviously all right now and judging by his growth spurt, being fed every day."

"But Albus ..."

"They're right," spoke up Sirius. "Harry will be upset that we over heard him, but he will never go back to that life again. And he's also right in that we've all failed him. We need to start listening to him more. Mooney told me once that he has good instincts. Perhaps we should listen when they kick in."

Severus was in a corner. He had been quiet during the entire tirade, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. Albus would have to watch him to make sure that he didn't hunt the Dursley's down to kill them himself. Hopefully, the man realized that doing so would only alienate Harry.

They continued talking for a few more minutes. Suddenly they heard laughing.

"Can we come through?" called out Harry.

"Yeah," called Sirius.

The three entered the dining room and headed to the kitchen. "We're hungry again."

"Ron's hungry again," corrected Hermione.

"I want more cake too," said Harry.

"Honestly you two. I'm surprised you don't each weigh 500 pounds."

Albus watched bemusedly as they laughed their way into the kitchen.

"They sure made up fast," grunted Moody.

"Harry knows how fast things can change," said Remus.

And to that, they all sadly agreed.

A few days after his birthday found Harry looking for an adult in the house. He came across Remus first. "Remus, I need your help with an experiment."

"Oh?" Remus put down his tea. "What kind of experiment?"

"I have a book that will appear blank to you but I need you to cast the Latin to English translating charm on it for me."

"Why?"

"Because I need to learn occlumency and it's getting frustrating because I have four books to read but I'm only half way through the first one. Stopping to look up words and trying to make it work in the context sucks."

Remus chuckled lightly. "Bring me the book and I'll cast it for you, though something minor like this you could probably get away with casting it yourself."

Harry snickered. "I see Sirius has been rubbing off on you. I don't want to take any chances. I'll be right back."

A few minutes later Harry put the book in front of Remus.

"Harry, why can't I touch it?" he asked curiously.

"Part of the protective spells on it."

Remus frowned. "Where did you get these books again?"

"Hogwarts."

Shaking his head, Remus cast the translation charm on the book.

Harry picked it up and flipped through it. "Awesome. Thanks Remus!"

As he reached the 3rd floor to go back to his room, he heard the floo activate and the doorbell ring at the same time. 'Must be another order meeting,' he thought.

He then went into his room to read the book - now that he could.

As he was reading, he felt sleepy. He laid back in the bed and landed right in a vision.

"Excellent. There weren't any witnesses, were there?"

"No, my Lord."

"Rise. You have done your task well. I will reward you with whatever you wish to have. Tell Wormtail and by tomorrow it will be yours."

"Thank you, my Lord. You are most gracious."

Voldemort watched the Death Eater leave. "Wormtail! Get in here!"

"Coming master!"

"I am in a good mood. Things are finally going my way. Has Lucius come back with his report yet?"

"No, my Lord."

"Severus?"

"No, my Lord."

"Nott?"

"He arrived right before you summoned me."

"Send him in." Voldemort sent a hex toward Wormtail to make him go faster.

Harry was then able to pull himself from the vision. He sat up in bed and wished he didn't. The world started spinning, but he needed to get to Sirius.

"Sirius," he called weakly.

"Sirius!" he tried again. He felt horrible. "Hedwig, go get Sirius."

A minute later Harry heard footsteps come up the stairs but there wasn't much he could do. As soon as the door opened further to let more light in, Harry started throwing up.

Sirius was across the room in half a second. "Are you all right Harry?"

"I am now."

Sirius conjured a glass of water. "Drink this." After Harry had done so, he asked, "Was it another vision?"

Harry nodded. "Someone's dead and it pleases Voldemort a lot. The Death Eater that did it said he left behind no witnesses."

Sirius sighed. "It was Minister Overwhelm. He was assassinated an hour ago."

"What?"

Sirius nodded with a grimace. "Harry, I want you to practice your meditation. Calm yourself down some."

"Can you stay with me for a few minutes?"

"I can stay for as long as you need me to."

Harry closed his eyes and began meditating. Neither noticed Snape observing the scene from the doorway - nor the hurt expression on his face, knowing that he could not offer his own son the comfort he needed.

"Albus, Miss Nott was interrogated by the Dark Lord this morning."

"Is she all right?"

"She is. Her status as Nott's daughter protected her. She did tell him that Potter valued family above everything else though."

"I'll warn Sirius to stay on guard more so than normal. Has he mentioned anything about the prophecy?"

"He's curious about the wording but as far as I can tell, he's not focusing on it. He's more concerned with building up his ranks for the moment."

Albus nodded.

"How is Potter coming with occlumency?"

"Remus told me that he's cast some translation charms on some very curious books that Harry claims deal with occlumency."

"What's in them?"

"He has no idea. He can't touch them and when he looked at them, they're blank."

"Where did Harry get them?"

"He claims Hogwarts."

Severus frowned. "It's hard to tell what the boy has found. If he really doesn't sleep much, he probably roams the castle at night trying to see what he can get into."

"He'll have to be careful if he does that this year. The new minister has decided to interfere with Hogwarts. They've assigned Dolores Umbridge as the new defense teacher."

"She is one of the people saying that the Dark Lord is not back?"

"She is. She is also against anyone that is not a pure blood."

"Can you just kill me now?"

"Nonsense Severus. You'll be fine. And besides, I'll need someone to keep me from hexing her."

Severus smirked.

About two weeks before school was supposed to start found Harry waking up feeling refreshed. He glanced at the clock and startled.

Seven A.M..

Did he sleep through the night?

The entire night?

Harry checked himself over. He felt wonderful. He had spent the better part of the past three weeks working on his occlumency shields. If he had to describe it, it was like ordering his memories in a filing cabinet and then putting a shield of fire around each cabinet.

That's how he liked to think of it anyway.

Last night, Harry had purposefully erected a shield around all of his memories and his mind the way the books had described.

And now he felt good.

He felt better than good.

He felt great.

After grabbing his things, he headed toward the shower.

"You're in a good mood," commented Sirius at breakfast.

"I slept through night. I bet I got nine hours of sleep."

"You slept the entire night?" asked Sirius with some disbelief in his voice.

"I did. It's a nice change," he said ruefully. "Hopefully I can keep it up."

"I hope so too," admitted Sirius. "Book lists are supposed to be delivered today. When they come, we'll go into Diagon Alley. Remus, Moody, and Tonks are going to be going with us."

Harry nodded. "Am I being polyjuiced again?"

"Yeah."

After breakfast, he went upstairs to see what he needed supply wise.

At 10am, an owl landed on his bed where he was reading. He relieved it of its burden.

Harry scanned the list. He marked the divination books off. Ron had indeed been upset that Harry couldn't take the class anymore, but it had honestly been a relief for him.

He put the list in his pocket and grabbed his coin bag to refill at Gringotts. After making sure he had his wand, he headed back down the stairs.

"Well?"

"I got my list. I'm ready when you all are," said Harry to a room full of people.

"Anything you want to tell us?" asked Sirius.

Harry frowned. "Not really."

Now it was Sirius' turn to frown. "Your booklist didn't contain anything extra?"

"No. Should it have?"

The floo then flared in a way that indicated it was just a floo call and not someone coming through.

"Harry!"

Harry gave a funny look to the adults in the room before going to see what Ron wanted.

"Harry!"

"I'm right here, Ron."

"I don't believe it. I got made a prefect!"

Harry's eyes widened. He was suddenly unsure how to feel. Sirius' conversation made sense now. He had thought Harry would get made a prefect.

"... and mom's going to get me a new Clean-Sweep broom!"

"That's great, Ron."

"When are you going to Diagon Alley?"

"In a few minutes."

"We can't go until Wednesday."

"I have to go. Everyone is waiting on me. Congrats again Ron."

Harry watched Ron's grinning head back out of the fireplace.

He then backed up and sat down in a chair.

He had forgotten about prefects being picked in the 5th year. If he had remembered, did he assume he would be one of them?

Yeah, he guessed he did. But it was wrong to assume that. Sure, he had done a lot in his years at Hogwarts but he had also gotten into a lot of trouble.

Honestly, he didn't really have anything more than Ron did, other than his power level. And he hated the attention and being a prefect would just garner more attention.

He was a horrible friend to not be happy for Ron.

Harry took a deep breath. He would be happy for Ron. Otherwise, he was no better than Malfoy - who expected everything to just be handed to him.

Harry composed himself and re-entered the dining room.

"What did Ron want?" asked Remus.

"To tell me he got made a prefect."

"What?" asked Sirius as his head snapped up.

Harry chuckled. "I get too much detention for me to make prefect. Ron said his mom is going to get him a new clean-sweep broom for getting it."

"Ready to go?" gruffed Moody.

"Yep."

"Then let's go," he said as he handed over a vial of poly-juice potion.

"I don't like it Albus! I walked in the library after the order meeting the other night to find them having a conversation! Together!"

Albus shook his head. "Honestly Sirius. I've told you over and over again that Severus is on our side."

"It's not even that. It has more to do with the fact that they were talking - as if it was a normal thing to do!"

Albus put his head in his hands. "What were they talking about?"

"Potions. I mean, they weren't even pranking potions, they were talking seriously about some kind of potion that Snape had assigned as summer homework. I want you to tell Snape to stay away from Harry."

"I will do no such thing."

"Why not? Is it because he and Lily dated? Do you want him to form some kind of attachment to Harry - to protect him? Because I won't allow any type of attachment to form. I can protect Harry perfectly fine. Besides, I didn't like Snape when we were younger and I certainly don't like him any more now."

"You're letting your emotions cloud your judgement Sirius. Did it ever occur to you that Harry might take offense to you telling him who he can and can't talk to?"

"Harry will never find out."

Albus wondered if someone would just hex him to put him out of his misery. He and Sirius had been arguing for about 30 minutes on the same subject.

"Sirius, sit down. I want you to listen to me very carefully."

"No Headmaster," said Snape as he opened the door to his office. "I appreciate you speaking on my behalf, but that's not necessary."

'Marvelous,' thought the Headmaster. 'By the time these two get done arguing, I'm going to need new furniture.'

Twenty minutes later, Sirius stormed out of the office via the floo network and Severus via the door. He, however, was left staring at a smoldering chair in the corner of the room and a broken window straight across from it. He sighed. Some days it just didn't pay to get out of bed.

A/N: I am soooooo sorry about being late with this post, but my 88 year old grandfather has gotten into "spring cleaning" mode, meaning he points to something and I clean it. Normally I'm so tired that I pass out face first in the pillow and don't move again until the next morning only to do it all over again. I hurt in muscles that I had forgotten even existed. lol

Anyway, I'm sure judging by this chapter you all prolly think I hate Sirius, but I don't. He was actually one of my favorite character's from the book. It's just, I think he needs to grow up just a tad bit more. He's slowly doing so, but seems to be fighting against it at the same time. *ruffles Padfoot's hair* ;)

*Backs away from jade slowly* I promise that it is coming up ... soon. *puts trees in front of me*

Witchsbroom - In the chapter ... or the one after ... waaaayyy back when Snape first learned the truth, Lily had written a letter to Sirius and placed it in the photo album. He never destroyed it, even though at the time, he thought Sirius was the secret keeper and betrayed everyone. The letter is supposed to tell Sirius the truth w/o him ... hopefully .. killing Snape.

As you can see, more of Harry's past was revealed. I toyed with how to do that conversation for forever, before I finally got it to where it somewhat made sense. I also had Ron keep the prefect badge. I had thought about giving it to Harry, but I have one scene in his 5th year that wouldn't work if he was a prefect, so the badge went to Ron ... plus, Harry really does hate all that attention. hehe

I'd plunder through and see if I could pre-answer some of your questions that might come up, but I'm *really really* sleepy. I should have been in bed two hours ago.

Up next, I fix one of my biggest pet peeves with book 5 - plus the rest of the summer and the return to school. Since I am still spring cleaning, I am going to give myself the deadline of next Friday to have the next chapter up ... but I've only got 1 more room to go through. Once I get it finished, I'll have more time to write and edit, which means that you'll have it before Friday. (I hope.) hehe

Thank you all for the reviews everyone.

And Happy Belated Birthday Bookworm!

*Locks self in steel cage to keep away from chainsaws and pitchforks and bonfires*