Disclaimer – Everything you recognise belongs to JKR. All the rest is simply me playing in her sandbox.

-oOoOo-

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

Chapter 20

Every morning for over a week now, Harry had eagerly awaited the post owls. And every morning when the flood of hoots and feathers had finished making their deliveries, his heart sank just that tiny bit more. But that didn't stop him hoping.

And then, finally, on last Monday morning of lessons before the exams would begin, he got his wish. In fact, his wish came true twice over. A large brown barn owl veered straight from the open window toward where he was sitting at the Gryffindor table. Right behind it, flew a second, slightly smaller and darker owl.

Before the two owls had even completed their landings, he had a strip of bacon in each hand ready for them.

"Who're they from?" Neville asked as he moved his pumpkin juice out of harm's way.

Harry, though, was too busy removing the letters to answer.

A deep frown furrowed his brow as he recognised the first letter. It was an envelope that looked remarkably familiar. Turning it around, he saw his very own handwriting: Sirius Black. Across it, though, in vivid red ink, were the words: No Correspondence Permitted to Prisoners of Azkaban Island.

Sirius, one of his father's best friends, was in prison?

The phrase repeated over and over in his head. Harry wondered what he'd done to land himself there. How did the prankster that he'd heard about, who he'd always pictured being like Fred or George, end up in prison. He vowed to find out. After exams were over, of course.

Thrusting the letter that'd been meant for Sirius into his pocket, Harry turned his attention to his other letter. This one looked nice and thick. At least three or four pieces of parchment, he guessed. Slitting it open with his butter knife, Harry rifled to the end page and looked at the signature: Remus.

The smile that he wore when he looked up at his friends must have been infectious, for they too grew smiles on their faces.

"It's from Remus Lupin. He wrote back!"

"That's wonderful, Harry, I'm so happy for you," Hermione exclaimed.

"Yeah, mate, one of your dad's best friends, I bet he's got a few stories to tell," Neville agreed.

Not able to contain his excitement any longer, Harry dove into the letter.

Dear Harry,

It was wonderful to receive your letter. Yes, I was one of your dad's best friends, but more than that, I was also great friends with your mum.

It has been a very long time since I saw you last. I was there when your parents first brought you home and at your first birthday party and many, many other times as well.

As much as I'd like to see you again, at the moment, meeting could be problematic, however I would like nothing better than the opportunity to correspond with you.

I know that you asked specifically for stories about your James, but to start with, I hope that you'll indulge me in telling you about one of the very first friends that I ever had. She was a delightfully warm-hearted soul who could see the good in others that was often invisible to us ordinary folk. I am, of course, talking about your mother, Lily.

I first met Lily on our very first journey on the Hogwarts Express way back in first year. You see, I was having a bit of difficulty with a door that seemed to be stuck …

-oOoOo-

Not for the first time, Harry poured over the journal where he'd been writing every fact about the Potters and Evanses that he'd managed to find out. But in this instance, he was particularly focussed on one main aspect: the Potter wealth.

The Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter had been around for a very, very long time. In all of that time in the wizarding world, they'd accumulated quite a large number of businesses, buildings, houses and land.

They'd found references to Potters being one of the investors to the company that built the rail-line from London to Hogsmede. Neville had been even more excited than Harry when he realised that one of the businesses that Madam Sprout purchased her magical plants from was Pottarius Magical Plants and Menagerie, a company based somewhere deep in Brazil and was wholly owned by the Potters.

And then there were the houses. Every continent in the world seemed to have some Potter presence, but nowhere more than in England itself. And that included a reputed island hidden just off the coast of Wales.

Of course, as both Neville and Hermione pointed out, the information that they'd managed to glean from the library were from books that dated from just a few decades old to centuries old. Not to mention that, even if they were right in assuming that Harry was the heir to the House of Potter, he wouldn't be able to touch any of it until he was of age.

But that didn't stop Harry dreaming. If there was even a chance that he wouldn't have to return to the Dursleys …

Shaking his head, Harry once more skimmed the list. Any one would do. Even the smallest. Just one, that's all that he needed. Except, he was only eleven. In both worlds, magical and muggle, he needed a responsible adult. And that meant that, if he wanted to escape the Durleys, then he needed an adult who he could trust.

If the muggle world was out, then Harry decided to try the magical. And the only adults that he knew were already in the castle.

After a quick jog to the library, Hogwarts: A History was in his hand, and he was skimming towards the back where all of the rules, regulations and by-laws were laid out. Most, of course, seemed ridiculously out of date or as far as he knew, were never utilised.

Like, for example, the clause about students being permitted to hire their own tutors if the school provided professors were deemed to be unacceptable. That was one clause that Harry felt sure should have been useful this year, especially in light of the woeful teaching of Professors Bins and Quirrel and the way that he and Neville seemed to have proved that they could learn more from a book about potions than anything that they'd learnt from Snape.

Finally, squashed between the rules about Hogsmede visits and the agreement between Hogwarts School and the Hogwarts Express, was the paragraph that he was looking for. He read it through once and his face fell. He read it through again and his shoulders slumped. He read it through a third time and he lost all hope.

No student is permitted to remain at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizarding over the summer holidays, that is, between the end of term in late June until August 31 each year.

And there it was. He was doomed to return to the Dursleys for at least two months every year. Harry let his legs collapse under him as he saw his future unfold. Ten months of living in the castle with his friends, learning magic and having fun, only to have that life squashed and beaten out of him the instant that he returned 'home'.

For a fraction of a second, he considered running away. But then, that's what he'd been considering anyway when he was dreaming of the Potter properties that he was sure still existed out there somewhere.

Hermione or even Neville, he was sure, would happily offer for him to spend some of the holidays with them. But he knew that he couldn't do that to them. Not after they'd spend most of the year away from their own families. He couldn't, no wouldn't impose like that. He knew all too well what being without family was like.

What could have been mere minutes or even as much as an hour later, Harry finally realised that there was one other person he trusted who just might be able to come up with some other option for him.

-oOoOo-

The door before him was closed, not an unusual occurrence. Indeed, when he thought about it, he didn't remember it ever being left open. Inside, he imagined, Professor McGonagall would be working at her desk, her red-tailed eagle quill in her hand. That gave him a small smile. The few times that he'd been in Professor McGonagall's office since Christmas, she was always using the quill that he'd given her. She'd never said, but he suspected that it had become her favourite.

Harry raised a hand to knock, and paused. He really was in two minds about the whole idea of talking to the professor. Any which way that he looked at it, he just couldn't see a way that she'd be able to help.

With a shake of his head, he turned away.

"Can I help you, Mister Potter?"

Harry looked up, startled. It seemed that his assumptions were incorrect. Professor McGonagall wasn't in her office. Instead, she was walking down the corridor towards him.

"Um, no. Oh, I don't know. Maybe, yes," he babbled.

Professor McGonagall smiled. "Well, there's a multitude of answers for me to pick from. How about you come in and tell me what's troubling you?"

Harry nodded and moved to the side to allow Professor McGonagall to tap her wand to the door before opening and gesturing him in. Instead of rounding her desk, she settled in to an armchair near the back of the room. With a practised flick of her wand, a tin of biscuits floated across the room and settled itself on the small table between the chairs.

"Have a biscuit, Mister Potter," she offered once he was seated before choosing one for herself.

Sitting back, she looked him over before gesturing with her hand for him to begin.

"I've been thinking about the summer holidays," he began tentatively, "and about going back to the Dursleys."

Professor McGonagall nodded, waiting for him to get to the point.

Finally, when the silence became too much for him to bear, he dropped his head and blurted out the one thing that had been on his mind for days. "I don't want to go back!"

"I take it that your relatives are not … kind to you?" she asked.

Harry snorted. "That's one way of saying it, Professor."

"Mister Potter … Harry, I already gathered from the little that you and Miss Granger told me before Christmas that you didn't have a good home life. I'll tell you now that I took my misgivings straight to Headmaster Dumbledore and he's assured me that he was going to pay a visit to your Aunt and Uncle to make sure that they treat you properly."

Harry easily imagined how that meeting would go.

Uncle Vernon would bluster and rant and rave. Then, after realising that he was talking to a 'freak', he'd probably start cowering and agreeing to anything and everything. His Uncle had seen firsthand what wizards could do courtesy of Hagrid and Dudley's pig tail. But the instant that Harry returned home and finding out that he couldn't do underage magic, Uncle Vernon would make Harry's life a living hell. Harry himself would cop everything that Uncle Vernon would have wanted to do to Professor Dumbledore for disgracing his house just by being inside it.

"I don't think that'll help," Harry managed to say.

Professor McGonagall smiled. "Oh, I wouldn't be too sure. Professor Dumbledore can be quite persuasive when he wants to be.

Not wanting to argue with his teacher, Harry let that go. Instead, he decided to press on.

"I know that I can't stay here in the castle over the summer holidays. So I've been wondering if there was somewhere else that I could stay in the magical world."

Harry saw Professor McGonagall open her mouth, but decided to quickly continue before she had a chance to say 'no'.

"Hermione, Neville and I have been trying to find out about the House of Potter. From what we can tell, there're a lot of houses that the Potters own and I was hoping that I could stay in one of them."

The pleased expression that flittered across Professor McGonagall's face confused Harry, but he didn't have time to decipher it just then.

"Harry, even if I wanted to let you stay somewhere other than with your relatives, I simply cannot," she told him. "Your Aunt and Uncle are your legal muggle guardians. They have the right to decide where you are to stay over the summer holidays. And when it comes to the magical world, as you're an orphan, the Headmaster is responsible for you and he's already said that he'll talk to your relatives on your behalf."

She leaned forward and patted him on the knee.

"You're just going to have to trust Professor Dumbledore, Harry. He'll make sure that you're treated right."

Harry nodded his acceptance. What else was there to do? He'd already figured that he didn't have any other options. All that he could do was to hope that Professor Dumbledore was able to scare his Uncle into some semblance of niceness.

"Thank you, anyway, Professor," he said, rising from the chair and heading for the door.