Hello people, this story is actually going to be roughly planned out unlike my other story. I have yet to figure out where it's going but I will soon. This is a reminder of something that some people seem unable to grasp, this is not canon, and I will change things for the story.

There will be the odd sexual scene, but I will let you know at the start of the chapter. There will also be lots of innuendo and sexual references just so you anti-sexual anything people (not that there are likely to be many) don't bite my head off. (experience)

There will probably be lots of inspiration from other fics but I'll name them so you can check 'em out yourselves at the end of the chapter.

I sadly don't own any of Harry Potter or its characters.

By the way, there is a small sexual scene roughly in the middle, but nothing too bad (unless you're very religious, in which case why are you reading fanfics? They almost all have something sexual or violent about them.) but enough of my waffling.

Enjoy whatever this is.

Harry was finding his summer to be more than a bit shit. Bearable, but still shit. It was so hot, like you could fry an egg on the pavement, that's how hot it was. And as the Dursleys were probably lounging around with ice cream and iced water in Kent, he was forced to do exhausting tasks in the sun. especially arduous tasks after the 'Marge incident' last year. It was during one of these tasks, turning the flowerbeds to be exact, that he wished he had a house elf to help him.

"Wait a second. I do have a house elf for a friend!" he exclaimed "How did I not think of this before!" he shouted. The Dursleys were off in Kent until the end of the weekend and today was Wednesday, so he didn't worry about a frying pan to the head from his aunt. "Dobby!" he called out.

Crack.

"Great Master Harry Potter Sir called?" Dobby asked bouncing with enthusiasm.

"Erm, yes. I wanted to ask if you were alright with doing a bit of work for me. I can pay you and everything if you wa-" Harry didn't finish his sentence as he was busy being hugged around the knees by Dobby who was over the moon with this offer.

"Of course, Great Master Harry Potter Sir! Dobby be's happy to help. He needs no pay or nothings! He be's overjoyed by this offer! I is accepting this offer with my whole beings!" he happily cried out.

"O-okay then. Are you able to turn the flowerbeds?" With a snap of Dobby's fingers it was done, the earth turned and able to bear seeds if it rained. "Can you clean the inside of the oven in the kitchen?" Harry asked as he pointed to the kitchen. Another snap and a glow from the oven left Dobby looking up toward Harry waiting for his next task.

Half an hour later, parts of the Dursley's house had never been so clean. The kitchen was blinding to walk into on account of the large windows reflecting sunlight off every surface. There wasn't a single particle of dust in the entire house.

"Holy shit Dobby, I don't think I could have done all this in a thousand years" Harry whistled as walked through the kitchen up towards the stairs to his room.

"Dobby is pleased to be helpings Great Wizard Harry Potter. But he bes wonderings, the life of a free elf bes very hard, house elves be needings the connection to their masters to live, Hoggywartys be having enough extra magic that Dobby beings able to live. But dobby not be being happy, I's not being able to leave Hoggywartys for very long." Dobby explained his ears drooping a little bit. "Dobby be asking; does Great Wizard Harry Potter be needing a house elf? If not I's be asking Professor Dumbleydores."

"No, it's fine Dobby, if you want me to I'll bond you with me. I'll just need you to tell me the oath." Harry responded after a brief moment of thought.

After much calming down Dobby, Harry began; "House elf Dobby, as scion of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter, I bind you to me and my House, you shall obey me and my kin until your death or release. So mote it be!" with that, both of them emitted a faint glow and a golden chain of light formed between them. The link between magical cores. It stretched from the middle right of Harry's chest, opposite the heart, to the same place in Dobby's chest.

As the glowing link disappeared, Dobby was quite clearly in a better way. There were fewer signs of stress and exhaustion on him, his ears were a bit less floppy, his eyes were brighter, he stood up straighter, and so on and so forth. There was another thing, Harry could almost… sense? Was that how he'd describe it? Yes, sense. Harry could sense Dobby's well-being, he wondered if he could turn it off and as if on cue, he couldn't sense anything.

"Great Master Harry Potter sir! Yous be malynowreshed! Yous should be beings much taller and bigger, yous not well. Be restings now!" Dobby had used this connection to assess Harry's health as he had been concerned about him since their first meeting. It was an unusual and non-regular occurrence that when particularly powerful wizards bound with extremely loyal beings a connection of sorts could be formed. Dobby had only found out about it from some of the other house-elves who knew Dumbledore's personal elf, who he had bound to himself and not Hogwarts.

Dobby, despite being one of the kindest people Harry knew, had started to channel Oliver Wood and Madam Pomfrey when It came to getting Harry healthy again which wasn't surprising as he had worked in the hospital wing alongside his regular duties and had therefore a lot of contact with both. Madam Pomfrey worked there, and Oliver was the only person who was even nearly as often in the hospital wing as Harry. He was absolute and stern when making Harry stay in bed and drink potions and could obsess and lecture for hours about a very specific thing that could be summed up in a couple of sentences.

After about a week of this treatment, dobby declared Harry as currently fit and able. However, dobby was unable to reverse the lasting damage from a decade of neglect and abuse. And so, Harry found himself being apparated to St Mungo's, the wizard equivalent of hospital, by Dobby who seemed to know exactly where they were going. They had come in the back entrance for staff and priority patients and were now making their way through endless corridors. Until finally, they reached a door with the name Poppy Pomfrey. Dobby knocked and upon hearing the words "Come in!" being called, he entered with a somewhat reluctant Harry following him in.

"Ah hello, Dobby. Oh, and Mister Potter too." She sighed as they entered the rather sparse room. "Well? What have you done now? We're not even halfway into the holidays you know." She directed this at Harry, who virtually had his own reserved bed in the hospital wing at Hogwarts.

"Madam Poppy ma'am, Dobby has found that Great Master Harry Potter be's so underfed so he's beings too small and his bones be beings too weak. I's has brought him to health and strength but yous must be undoing the harms of the pasts." Dobby rattled off at extremely high speed.

"Well, fortunately, I can. Go on then Mister Potter, go settle on that bed over there." Madam Pomfrey sighed, knowing full well that, as this was Harry Potter, things were almost certainly going to go pear-shaped.

And sure enough, go pear-shaped they did. Harry was lying on a bed in a private room, so as not to disturb other patients, several examining and analysing spells had been cast on him. The chaos started as the results came in. The first couple were as expected, but stuff quickly spiralled out of the ordinary or even expected.

The first anomaly was his overwhelming magical reserves. He was quite possibly on par with several of the Hogwarts staff, if not with a higher reserve. He was almost certainly one of if not the most powerful thirteen-year-olds in the world.

The second result was the unusually unstable raw magic he possessed, and while many experienced accidental magic, that Harry had displayed it long after the start of his Hogwarts education was very rare and found in very few individuals.

Third was the magical lock that had been placed on him allowing him to use only thirty-ish percent of his magic. But also, the astonishing revelation that his available reserves were almost always at around fifty or sixty percent. It seemed like he was always using just under half of his available magic. In total this boy was using at max twenty percent of his reserves, at the minimum ten percent. And somehow the fool had cast a fully corporeal Patronus and walked away completely normal.

Fourth was the incredible amount of tracking, mild mental blockers, mild magic blockers, recording and monitoring spells. There were a lot, and that was saying something as she had treated heirs of noble families who were often monitored, but this amount dwarfed them. It was interesting that she had never found them before, perhaps something had changed. Maybe his magic had discovered the spells and revealed them, or maybe the spells' power had faded a bit resulting in their sudden appearance, who knew?

Fifth came something that physically shouldn't be possible, and yet there it was right in front of her. Harry's body somehow had multiple magical signatures.

This was impossible. A person could only have one magical signature, and yet here were several. This could be explained by the presence of spells, but three signatures of this strength had never been recorded before and by all accounts should be impossible. Each person's magical signature was linked to their soul and therefore spells. Having three would have to mean that either he had three souls, or two people had cast lots of spells on this boy or somehow a mix of the two.

"No. That can't be right." The healer muttered as she recast the spell. "That's impossible." She murmured, getting the same response back again. "Dobby, go and get Healer Harris."

"Yes, ma'am Dobby is going," he said before disappearing with a 'crack'. After that, Madam Pomfrey cast a Patronus and sent it off after whispering briefly to it. Harry was watching all of this with mounting apprehension, sensing that something very weird was happening.

Madam Pomfrey, meanwhile, had rushed over to a blank painting on the wall and prodded it. Immediately after the prod, a kind-looking woman stuck her head into the picture from the frame and rather grumpily asked what the hell was her painting being prodded for.

"I need you to tell the headmaster to come to my office in St Mungo's. It's about Potter." She added in a whisper. And so, the head disappeared with an indignant huff about being used like a common messenger.

Moments later there was a knock at the door and a middle-aged man came into the room. He briefly stared as he saw Harry but seemed to pull himself together quickly after a not-so-subtle cough from Madam Pomfrey.

"Ah yes. Sorry." He said slightly awkwardly, "What do you need Poppy?" he continued, addressing Hogwarts' matron.

"Come here and run a magical signature search. And then a magical reserve measure" After seeing his questioning look, she added, "Look just do it. You'll see why pretty clearly."

He did as instructed and ran the spell. At first, he looked confused, then he ran it again and looked even more confused, and then his eyes widened in the shock of realisation of what this must mean.

"I- he- but- how? Fucking hell." Was what came spilling out of his mouth as he tried to wrap his head around what he had just found out, much to Poppy's annoyance.

"Oh, for heaven's sake Harris, pull yourself together!" she exclaimed, "Now cast the second one and consider that this idiot here cast a fully corporeal Patronus against at least one hundred dementors." He did as told, slightly shocked that at thirteen a child had done what many aurors couldn't. his jaw completely dropped when he cast the spell and did the mental maths.

"…-…"

"Exactly. Now, I need you here to try and help remove the stupid amount of enchantments and spells on this boy here. I've called a friend who owes me a favour and works as an independent curse-breaker. And Dumbledore's coming too because his is one of these signatures and might be able to provide some answers."

"Alrighty then. What are we dealing with?"

The answer turned out to be a hell of a lot. Thankfully, it was much quicker when the curse-breaker arrived. She was young and looked as if she was a recent graduate. She introduced herself as Amelea Flanth from Ilvermorny in the US despite being British. She was nice, cheerful and a bit of a wisecrack, but she was also very skilled, and Harry was mesmerised by her graceful movements as she dismantled the enchantments and spells placed on him.

And slowly Harry could feel like he was changing, every few minutes a sense would be slightly enhanced. Sounds became clearer and louder as if he had had earplugs in his whole life. His vision sharpened, his glasses now skewing his vision. He could smell the room better as if there had been a filter over him. He could also somehow feel his mind clear slightly like he could push aside some distractions.

And then there was a flick of her wand, and he felt a massive rush of power. The difference between what he felt now and what he felt before was like a forest fire and a candle. It felt like he could move mountains with a flick of his wand. Like he could destroy armies with one incantation. Like he could remove cities from existence with merely a thought.

That was the moment that Dumbledore flamed into the room with a flash of fire. Making the two healers jump and Harry flinch. Interestingly though, Amelea didn't even acknowledge his arrival as she continued to dismantle some spell.

"Headmaster," Madam Pomfrey said, glaring daggers at him, "Care to explain why this child here has about a hundred different spells on him? Many of them restricting his growth and strength?" She seethed.

"One-hundred-eighty." Everyone turned to the curse breaker in surprise. "One-hundred-eighty spells currently dismantled, including the spells hiding everything and keeping them strong. Ninety-one spells which hinder, track and protect this boy, two concealment and recharging spells per enchantment, bringing the total up to two-hundred-seventy-three." She said, not even looking up from her work.

This news stunned everybody in the room. Even Dumbledore seemed to be surprised, but that was swiftly overcome by curiosity.

"Really? I thought… ahh wait, yes, okay, that makes sense." He contemplated to himself.

"What? What's making all this sense?" came the rather sharp reply from Harry after a moment of silence.

"He's realised why there were more spells on you than the ones he knew about and how those and his spells were revealed." Once again, all eyes turned to Amelea who was still dismantling spells and looked to be ignoring the rest of the room.

"What? It's obvious, who else would want to know where Harry was at all times and control his magic to stop bouts of accidental magic? His parents were unlikely to do all that while they were in hiding, and Voldy-shorts is unlikely to have given two shits about his wellbeing. Harry here grew up with muggles and they physically can't cast magic, so we're left with the venerable headmaster who, despite his outward appearance, is actually a rather manipulative and ruthless man." She explained finally turning around to face said man. Dumbledore was growing more and more uncomfortable as this girl explained things that no one but he knew about as if she were discussing the weather.

"Who exactly are you then miss…?" he started.

"Flanth, Amelea Flanth. I believe you know my parents though, they offered to ward Potter mansion and cottage, but you declined them." She stated, her eyes growing cold near the end.

At this, Dumbledore, the very definition of calm and rational, blanched, realising who she was talking about. He briefly looked like a schoolboy who had been caught cheating in an exam.

"Ah, that would explain your skill as a curse-breaker then, and why you seem to know so much."

"And how I know that you cast many of these spells and enchantments." That did it. Dumbledore's usually calm demeanour completely shattered, his eyes showing their remorse, guilt and anger and his body language sagged. The man conjured a rather comfortable-looking armchair and flopped down on it as if he hadn't sat down in weeks.

This man, the most powerful wizard in the world, had broken down because of a few words uttered by a girl who was barely a sixth of his age, because of one boy, who he'd wronged so grievously. It was an enlightening and harrowing sight.

"I'm…I'm so sorry Harry. I-I discovered when you were six what it was like, a-and I-. I put those spells on you to make sure it never happened again and then I threatened your aunt and uncle, they-they promised to treat you like a son and I somehow never found out anything had changed. If I did, I would have immediately removed you from those, those, people. Something went wrong with the spells, otherwise, you would have had a childhood to enjoy, not hate. I promise you will never return to them after this summer." He was a broken man, a man who had realised how bad this boy had had his life. A man who resolved to do better and destroy those who had slaughtered hundreds and directly caused this series of events. The time for repentance was over, it was time to show why he was feared.

"And, from now on, I will personally ensure that Death Eaters will not be allowed to walk. It is time they faced some punishment." There was the fire of determination in the old man's eyes as he made the proclamation.

Harry smiled slightly, glad to see the venerable old man had realised the error of his softness on those bastards. But when Dumbledore found out about the magical signatures, he suddenly seemed very intrigued. Three very strong signatures and a fourth weaker signature. Harry's own, Voldemort's, Dumbledore's and Lily Potter's respectively.

Harry's should have been there so there was nothing of interest there, Voldemort's was possibly a result of the Killing curse back in '81 but no one knew what the side-effects of the killing curse were, and Lily Potter's was a mystery. Needless to say, there was going to be some explaining to be had just not at the moment, Dumbledore said he would drop by sometime soon, once he had some more answers.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have about another hundred spells to remove." Amelea said turning back to Harry with a wink and grin, who blushed and grinned lopsidedly.

Another few hours later, they were both eating a small mountain of ice cream from Fortescue's and enjoying the summer day. Harry was positively bouncing with energy seeing as Madam Pomfrey had removed almost all side effects of his childhood and all of the enchantments on him had been removed, barring those which protected him. Hell, she had even removed the trace from him somehow, not that anyone was going to be finding out about it. Amelea was flopped on the chair, exhausted by removing said enchantments but nevertheless enjoying the ice cream. Fortescue really knew how to make the perfect ice cream.

"So how come you can remove the trace? I thought that was illegal and only known how to do by the unspeakables?" Harry asked, the question had been bugging him ever since she had whispered that the trace was no longer going to be a problem.

"It is." She said evasively, "But my parents are rather… knowledgeable. Shall we say?" she continued grinning at the annoyed look on Harry's face at the lack of an answer.

"I wouldn't know, would I? You haven't told me their names." He replied also grinning.

"They're very private people." She non-answered

"So am I and yet you know my parents' names." He pointed out.

"They're famous."

"Yours might be too. For all I know they could be the Queen and Minister Fudge" he said stating the last name distastefully despite both of them bursting into laughter immediately afterwards at the unpleasant image that gave them both.

"Yeah, my parents are famous in certain circles. But you've probably not heard of them being so young and ignorant if the rumours I've heard are true." She returned with a smirk.

"Well, we won't know for sure unless you tell me will we miss Flanth?" he said already filtering through all the famous people he knew of, despite most of them being from chocolate frog cards.

"No, you won't. But I could give you something to let you think longer," she said dropping the hint and waggling her eyebrows and grinning manically. Something to think longer? Interesting. Think longer, more time, live longer, im-

Realisation dawned on Harry's face at that. That couldn't be possible. But it could make sense. They were very secretive people, and it was very possible that with their help they could train someone so young to be a curse-breaker.

"Aha. You got it then." She smiled seeing his reaction, "Not bad, could be faster though."

"You're really their kid? Fucking hell. Must be cool."

"Yeah. Despite their age." She smiled as if remembering fond memories.

"How old are you even? I know it's supposed to be rude to ask a woman's age. But here, that must be a huuge age difference."

"Nah, it's all good. And to answer your question, I'm definitely young enough for you" she added with a grin and eyebrow waggle worthy of Sirius. Thankfully for Harry, the one upside of being around Sirius all the time was that he was less easily flustered by such comments and was more than willing to go beyond usual social boundaries until told to stop, because then he would stop without a second thought.

"Really?" he asked playfully before continuing, "Can't resist this amazingness? Because if you really can't wait, I happen to know that it's rather easy to rent a room at the three broomsticks for a few hours." He replied, equally Sirius-like.

"A few hours you say? You sure you're that good?" she responded with faux-surprise and a smirk.

"Quidditch is rather good at building stamina. And who knows? Maybe you'll be surprised. I've been told I'm supposed to be rather the catch." He continued.

"Yeah? Maybe this time in two years when you're legally screwable." She pointed out, "I'd rather not be arrested while doing it with a minor. Wouldn't be the ideal return to the public spotlight we want." She continued ending any immediate hopes.

"Oh, so is there a plan to return to the open with all us mortals?" Harry pounced on the slip of the tongue, wanting to know any information he could.

"Maybe…" she said mysteriously. "Let's just say we aren't complete fools and command a fair bit of influence." she continued before her expression hardened. "Not that anyone can find out, understood?" Harry nodded, appreciating that everyone was entitled to have secrets.

After a while of chatting and just wandering around aimlessly, they parted ways. She had to prepare for an upcoming expedition, and he had nothing else to do so he headed home to get the list of topics to look into before returning to the Diagon Alley branch of the ICW Archive which he had come to frequent over the past weeks. That was basically the equivalent of a muggle library but could access any publicly available document in the world.

Harry came back to Privet Drive at close to midnight, he had stayed until the archive had closed and he had to leave but muggle transport had taken a while to get back to Surrey. But after a good sleep and waking up at about ten in the morning, he was good to go for the day and decided to finish any task he had been given or any possible task he would be given. Well, only in the loosest sense of the word, he would of course get Dobby to do them.

And now, as Dobby had done every task he was supposed to have done, Harry was snooping around Dudley's stuff and had found some interesting stuff. There were, interestingly, a couple of letters, which in itself was interesting as he'd never have put Dudley down as a writer. In fact, English was his worst subject at school, as far as Harry remembered, aside from maths. But no, what was really interesting was that they were from a girl. Dudley, it seemed from reading some of the letters, had a girlfriend called Emma, according to the name at the bottom of the letter, who he had almost certainly not told his parents about. The letters seemed, oddly, as if they had been written by someone nice, in other words, not what he had expected from the local bully. She appeared to be rather like him, which really weirded him out.

While Harry was renowned for being ignorant of important topics, he had started to educate himself in the last weeks. This was due mostly to a letter he'd been given by Professor Flitwick near the end of last term. The letter had been from Gringotts and had to be hand-delivered as for some weird reason owls from Gringotts couldn't find him and would always return to the bank with the letter. The letter had requested, well more ordered, that he go to the bank at the next available opportunity as there was something requiring his immediate attention. His charms professor had handed it over as he was part goblin, but had also volunteered to do it to pass along the following advice:

"Before doing what's in the letter, I'd get up to date on the things on this extra sheet here" he'd said giving Harry the letter and an extra piece of parchment with a list of events and topics on it such as Goblin-Wizard relations, standard banking rates, and Ministry/Wizengamot policies and Muggle British politics, among other things.

And that is what Harry had done. In the process, he'd discovered he was probably a bit of a leftie in the Muggle world and probably a part of the so-called 'light greys' in the Wizengamot. While he would often side with the likes of the Weasleys, he was no hard-line Dumbledore supporter. The man was single-handedly responsible for his upbringing and partly responsible for the lack of Sirius' trial, amongst other things he'd found out through old newspapers and books.

So, here he was in his cousin's room, reading letters from his cousin's girlfriend and realizing that his cousin might be changing. His parents, Vernon and Petunia, were hard Conservative party voters, who had had a fit when Thatcher was forced to resign. And their son was dating a girl who was the polar opposite, a lefty who was for the unions and against privatization. This gave Harry pause to think, Dudley had actually been spending more time in his room than usual and he'd seemed slightly more reluctant to go and meet his old mates like Piers and so on.

He moved on, to some photos amongst the letters. The first photo was of Dudley and her together in London, obviously they'd met up at some point in the past three weeks between the end of June and the middle of July. She was actually quite hot Harry thought as he looked at them together.

The next picture was of the pair of them with a group of people who Harry assumed were their friends. They looked a nice bunch he thought, his gaze sliding over their grinning faces, there were four boys and five girls in the group, and there were at least two more couples in the group. Harry suddenly felt rather lonely, he only really had two great friends and they were Ron and Hermione. And hadn't written him that much this summer, supposedly on Dumbledore's orders. Plus, though neither would admit it, they were slowly starting to fall for each other. While he got on with others like Neville and his quidditch team or now Amelea, Ron and Hermione were the only ones who he really hung out with. That was something he was going to address this school year, he decided.

The next photo was not something Harry was expecting, it was a solo picture of Dudley's girlfriend but this time the camera was obscuring her face. However, that was the only part of her that was obscured. She didn't have a single stitch of clothing on her body. Harry physically couldn't tear his eyes away from her slight but entrancing and very naked figure. Following her raised arms with the camera, he reached her obscured face and saw only her longish smooth brown hair, which led him to her shoulders and then he came to her breasts. And while he knew he shouldn't, he looked closer, observing their curve and how they seemed to stand away from her body with gravity having little effect on them. Then he came to her nipples, they were rosy pink and clearly contrasting with her very pale white skin. Harry could feel the tightness in his trousers build and adjusted them to allow for more comfort. He then continued down past her stomach and to her hips, which widened out to her thighs. Between which lay, below a small strip of short hair, her privates. As she was standing, Harry couldn't really see anything but a slight protrusion, which he assumed was her clitoris if he remembered that awkward day of sex education at the end of third year correctly. Man, that day was painful.

It was at this point that he remembered that this was Dudley's girlfriend and Dudley had almost certainly jerked off to this picture. That insta-killed his raging boner for the time being at least. He quickly memorised the picture and flicked through the rest of the pictures. Upon finding no more truly interesting pictures, nude or otherwise, he put the pictures back in their correct order.

He then continued to look through Dudley's things and when he found the adult comics, he swiped one that was at the very bottom of the stack hoping his cousin wouldn't notice. After all, he was a teenager and there are some things no teen hasn't done. He moved on, finding little more than a small box of condoms buried at the bottom and in the corner of the box, at which point he felt a little nauseous and decided to maybe stop probing around his cousin's room.

So, he decided that he would have a look around his aunt and uncle's room. In it, he found rather little until he raised a loose floorboard he spotted and found something that shocked him. First was a massive wad of cash, easily a couple thousand Quid (Pounds sterling for you Americans). Second, was a set of sheets of paper. They looked like they were something financial and from his uncle's work, weird. Third was both that shotgun from three years ago, apparently it had been mended, and a handgun. Harry noted that several numbers near the bottom of the grip had been filed off. It seemed his uncle was hiding some things. Then, even more porn. What was wrong with his 'relatives'?

Harry then placed everything back, exactly where it was, and looked around noticing yet another loose floorboard. Fucking hell, they should stop ripping up their floors, there was a reason people dug holes you know, or owned safes.

This one though was more interesting, there were several packs of condoms, very weird considering Harry had never heard anyone indulging in pleasure in this house other than Dudley. And then came a much more familiar sight, a knife. Britain was rather well known for its knife-crime seeing as knives were easy to carry, lethal and could be bought in any kitchenware shop. And then there was a list of names, places, phone numbers and addresses. But finally at the bottom was a tightly wrapped package of something white, he couldn't tell what it was. He once again put everything back in its place and left.

Back in his room, he flopped down onto his bed at an angle that left his lower right leg hanging off the edge and his head on the pillow. As he let his gaze wander over the ceiling, he decided to put on some music. Music which he had borrowed from his cousin's room as soon as possible. He had always liked music, and during the holidays and weekends, he would steal Dudley's CD player whenever he could and listen to it for hours. He would listen to almost anything, but he really liked rock bands like Nirvana, Green Day, and The Offspring even if he wasn't sure why. This time the first CD on the pile was the album 'Nevermind' by Nirvana. It was one of his favourites as he started to think through what his discoveries could possibly mean.

It was in this state that he could be found several hours later, listening to rock and punk songs while gazing at the ceiling and wishing he was elsewhere. Wishing he was somewhere where he could be himself, with family or friends. 'Or with a girlfriend' was the next random thought in his head, reminding him of his discovery with a rather telling reaction. Harry decided that he might as well get it over with at this point, so he made his way to the bathroom for a bit of release.

The next day dawned bright and early, the wispy clouds vibrant shades of pink and orange. The sight was one of the things good about always waking up early, a habit forced upon him by his bastards of a family. Harry was on top of the roof, he had put up a couple of charms there, an impervious, cushioning and concealment charm, he liked the view from up there and it was somewhere he was unlikely to be found. It was then that he noticed a speck on the horizon. As it drew closer, he realised, with help from his newly enhanced eyesight, that it was a bird. Thirty seconds later, he realised it was an owl and that it appeared to be looking straight in his direction. He hastily scrambled over to the ladder up against the edge of the roof and clambered down it, before throwing the window in his room open and grabbing an owl treat from the bag he kept next to the window.

When the owl landed a minute or so later, he unfurled the letter from around its leg and gave it a treat and stroke before letting it take a break on Hedwig's perch while it recovered. As he unfurled the letter, he wondered who it was from, after all, Ron and Hermione had sent him a letter yesterday and Hedwig was off delivering the reply at that moment. The handwriting seemed familiar to Harry but he wasn't sure how he knew it.

And then as he looked at the name at the bottom, he smiled, Katie Bell. She was the youngest Gryffindor chaser and only a year older than Harry. She was also really nice and was often willing to help he didn't understand stuff. Her letter read:

Hey Harry,

I hope you get this; my owl is a bit unpredictable so it might end up next door so sorry in advance. How are you? My summer hasn't been too bad but I'm kinda missing Quidditch and you and the team of course ;). You said you live in a muggle neighbourhood, right? I was wondering if you were willing to meet up sometime. (Please say yes, my siblings are driving me crazy). Also, I wanted to talk to you about something at the end of last school year, but I didn't get a chance, so this would be a good time. Anyway, I'll be awaiting your response (please be quick).

Katie,

P.S. This was at least the third try to get to you. My owl might not show up again if you don't put your exact address on a piece of paper for me to drill into his thick skull.

Harry read the letter, then reread it. He was definitely willing to go meet Katie. And boy was he looking forward to it. He quickly penned a response.

Hey Katie,

I'm glad I got your message (no matter how many tries). I'm good, great actually. I managed to get some stuff done over the last three weeks and I can't wait to tell you about it. I'll meet you wherever, whenever, I'm free most of the holidays. Can't wait for your response.

Harry,

P.S. I live (for now) at Nr.4 Privet Drive, Surrey, England.

And he strapped the letter onto the owl's leg before carrying it over to the window and saying clearly,

"Katie Bell, you know her. Off you go!" it took a bit of arm-shaking before the owl finally dislodged, but then it flew off into the ever-lightening sky.

Not even an hour later, Katie's owl was knocking on Harry's window. Harry quickly paused his music and dashed over to the window and let him in before passing him a treat, much to Hedwig's chagrin so he threw her a treat as well. The upsides of bribery were as immense as they were convenient.

Hi Harry,
Great I can't wait, I was honestly surprised with how close you live to me. I live in Windsor; you might know it on account of the queen living here. I can be at your doorstep in like forty-five minutes, or you could be here, it depends. Could you be here in like an hour? I really need to get away from my brothers and sisters, please Harry come quickly. I'll be on a bench near the castle, you can't miss the castle and the road naturally takes you past the benches.
Katie.

Harry was briefly surprised, but quickly made the decision. He was going, man, he was gonna get an earful if he didn't. But also why not, he had nothing better to do, well that wasn't technically true but he kind of wanted to go anyway. So, Harry scribbled another note saying he was on his way and would be there in forty-five minutes.

True to form, Harry's train pulled into Windsor and Eton Riverside Station after about an hour due to a delay leaving Weybridge, which was where he got on.

And so, as Harry found himself walking up the hill towards the residence of the Queen of England, he thought back on that weird shit he'd found in his aunt and uncle's room. He wasn't dumb, he knew that this was not only weird but probably also illegal. He was, however, shaken from his thoughts by a hand coming down on his shoulder. As he turned around, said hand pulled him into a potentially rib-crushing hug from the hand's owner, Katie.

"Harry!" she squealed into his ear, "How are you?"

"I'm fine Katie. But it's kinda hard to breathe with you crushing my ribs," he barely managed to huff out. Katie was remarkably strong on account of her being a chaser for Gryffindor for the past three years. Seamus had become rather starkly aware of that when he'd had a bit too much to drink after a quidditch game. His cheek had been red for two days after that encounter.

"So, what d'you want to do?" Katie asked as they started to wander down the road.

"I don't really know. I've never been to Windsor. What would you suggest?"

"Well, there's the cinema, a couple of parks, and of course this aged castle behind us," she said turning around and gesturing to the castle, "or we could go grab a couple of cokes and wander around for a bit."

"Sounds good to me, the last one I mean. We can just go wander around and chat, after all, it's been a while." Harry smiled as they both headed towards the Highstreet* for some drinks.

Around twenty minutes later, the pair found themselves sitting on a low wall in a park near the town centre talking about predominantly Quidditch. But then after about half an hour of chatting, a small group of people arrived at the park. A group of people who looked suspiciously like they could be relations of Katie.

"Oh, for the love of god." She sighed as she saw them, "Of course they would 'happen upon us' here. Can't I get any peace?"

"Well, we could always just leave. There are those steps over there." He suggested pointing a bit further along the wall, where some steps led up to a path towards the castle.

"Too late, they've seen us and they're grinning like loons. Trust my dad to go and be the fool here." Was the answer dismissing the idea. "I'm gonna hear about this for weeks now. Oh look, here they come. What a surprise" she grumbled as two roughly seven-year-olds came running over, followed by a man in his thirties or forties and a girl who looked to be around sixteen.

"Katie!"

"Katie!" came the little shouts of glee from the two seven-year-olds running towards them. They were a boy and a girl and appeared to be twins, they both had similar builds, brownish-blonde hair and both had one eye brown and one a very striking blue. They both had similar-shaped heads and even ran and sounded similar. The older girl, meanwhile, had a darker shade of brown hair, more like Katie, and had a more similar build to Katie, she was smiling at her sister's annoyance and her younger siblings' antics. The man, Katie's dad, was tall around six-three and had the appearance of some soldiers Harry had seen around in London, tough, strong and cheerful with a strange undertone of something that said that he was easily capable of destroying you if he wanted.

Harry was shaken from his thoughts by the 'oof' that came from next to him as the twins ran into Katie's embrace, briefly winding her.

"Oh, Katie. What a coincidence seeing you here." Her dad started as he approached with a massive grin on his face, somewhat undermining his act. "We were just going for a walk around the town."

"Around all the places I was likely to hang out around?" Katie said with a scowl. "Where did you start? The skatepark or that big old field by the roundabout?"

"I'm offended that you would even think I would do such a thi-" her dad started with faux indignation.

"That big old field" interrupted Katie's older sister.

"Daddy really-"

"-wanted to go-"

"-for a walk-"

"-When you left!" the twins exclaimed happily, finishing each other's sentence like the Weasley twins.

"Traitors, the lot of you." Their father muttered, "Unbelievable, three seconds until they go and throw me under the bus. Besides, I seem to remember you suggested we start at the field, Amy." He continued glaring at his eldest.

"Uhmm…" was all the response he got.

"Exactly." He said satisfied. Before turning to Harry. "So, how are you doing mate? And who are you?" he asked.

"I, uhm, I'm Harry, Harry Potter. And I'm good thanks, how about you sir?"

"Potter huh? Why does that name ring a bell?" he wondered, "Pun intended" he grinned with a wink causing all of the others to either groan or facepalm. This was clearly one of his favourite jokes, like Sirius and Sirius/serious.

"Really dad? The bell pun already? You've met him for literally five seconds." Katie sighed exasperated, "That has to be a record right Amy?"

"Yep!" she said popping the p, "previous record was around fifteen seconds. He smashed it."

"You've started to time me? Are you serious?"

"No, my godfather is Sirius, I'm pretty sure she's called Amy" Harry jumped into the conversation. All of them were a bit confused until Katie remembered when she had seen Harry and Sirius carried into the hospital wing while she was there due to a very experimental sweet the Weasley twins had thrown into her drink by accident while aiming for Cormac Mclaggen. She had returned to consciousness moments before the doors had opened with Harry, Sirius Black, and Ron Weasley being carried into the hospital wing on stretchers.

Her face dawned with realisation, and she snorted while giving Harry a light slap on the back of his head.

"Really? Sirius? You bloody fool. I can already tell Dad will like you."

"Wait, Sirius? As in Sirius Black, the dude who killed fourteen people and then escaped that bloody prison of yours? Him?" her dad demanded suddenly looking more menacing.

"Erm… Yes. But wait, he's innocent. You see…" so as Harry gave a summarised account of what had happened at the end of the last year. The twins had wandered over to the swings near the start of the story and all the others slowly showed more and more shock and surprise.

Fifteen minutes later, Harry had finished explaining and the others were also plopped down on the low wall as they processed the information dump, which he had dropped on them. Suddenly Katie broke the silence.

"So, you went and just followed some dog down a hole under the whomping willow? And then ran after an escaped convict and werewolf? And then time travelled to free a hippogriff and face off against hundreds of dementors? And then allowed said convict to escape on said hippogriff?" she asked getting more and more pissed with each question.

"Err, yes?". THWACK. "Ow! What was that for? The back of my head hasn't done anything to you!"

"No, but you could have died so many times! If you die Oliver'll have a heart attack, and we'll all lose you. You don't realise it, but you are one of Gryffindor's key figures. You bridged the gap between several different years, your own, mine, Angie and Alicia's, and Oliver's and due to that the rest of the house fell in behind, before you arrived there were obvious splits between years now, they are less obvious or gone." She explained, "Plus, more people than you realise like you. Not like that, Dad." She emphasised, while not even looking at her dad to cut off whatever remark he was going to point out.

"Really?"

"Yes Harry, you just need to give others a chance. You've been cocooned up with Granger and the Weasleys and I know of several people who want to get to know you better, for example: the entire quidditch team, Longbottom who you share a dorm with, that bones girl from Hufflepuff. And weirdly Greengrass too, at least I think, she glances over at you too often to be a coincidence."

"Yeah, I know. About the cocooned-up bit, I mean. I was planning on changing that this year though." Harry sighed.

"Good, let's make a start later," Katie said before turning to her dad and sister, "But first Dad and Amy are going to take those two hurricanes back home or to one of the other parks nearby, so we don't have to endure their terrible jokes or innuendo."

"Or so you two can get into some tonsil-hockey."

"Amy!" came the shout of horror from both Katie and her dad. Which she ignored instead grinning widely at Katie and Harry, who were blushing like tomatoes.

"I guess that proved your point Kate, you're right. Seeya!" she said brightly before hopping up and walking back the way she had come, heading home as the others assumed. Katie's dad, meanwhile, was looking shellshocked and kept opening and closing his mouth but making no sound.

"I can tell you now, I'm not planning on a game of hockey anytime soon," Katie said, getting over her shock fairly quickly. "At least not with harry." She added quietly. This broke the two men out of their thoughts. Both of them muttered something along the lines of, 'Thank god for that,' Before Katie's dad also stood up to go and round up the twins.

"And by the way Dad, I'm pretty sure Amy is on her way to go and have her own game of hockey. She turned left over there instead of going right. That's the direction her boyfriend lives in." Katie gestured to said crossing on the other side of the park.

"She what? Jeez, what is up with you guys today? One's on a date, one's going for a snog after making fun of her sister, and the other is meeting a boy in a park but not on a date. Why all today?!"

"Oh, so Daniel got that date then? Good on him." Katie said, quiet enough that her dad couldn't hear, "He's been pining over her for half a year now."

"Is your family always so… chaotic?" Harry asked as Katie's dad wandered off to find his other children.

"Yeah, kinda," Katie answered nonchalantly. "But now it's your turn. Let's hear some of your stories or anecdotes."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Authors note:
* a Highstreet is the main street in most British towns and often has plenty of shops.

One of the works mentioned at the start is this, it's great go check it out:
Harry Potter and The Revival of The Phoenix. By: PrinceAsmo

Hey guys, hope this first chapter was ok. I spent waaayy too long working on it, but I have a rough idea of what will be coming as compensation. (Believe me, that is something)

I'm interested if anyone of you can guess who Amelea really is.
Also, are lines better or a bunch of 'XX's better as a line break? Let me know because sometimes it doesn't really work too well with the line.
In case it wasn't clear, this starts between third and fourth year.
Questions and constructive criticism is as always welcome.
Requests will all be considered (unless they're
really dumb)

Next update will be coming soon-ish. I got a couple new video games and was distracted for at least a week. ;))

Thanks for even tapping on this,

Idfk.