For those of you who will read this multiple times, I apologize. Feel free to ignore this if you've already seen it, and move on to the chapter.

Here in my neck of the woods, it is now the 9th day of February, in the year 2012. Ten years ago today, I came across Fanfiction-dot-Net. I proceeded to publish "Lonely, Broken Hero," the first story I wrote that ever felt complete. It was inspired by a song, written for the Square-Enix game "Chrono Trigger," and marked the beginning of a lifelong passion.

Since February 9th, 2002, I have had the honor of meeting some of the greatest people on earth. These people have given me 5,885 reviews, thousands of Favorites, and over 1.8 million hits across 40 projects. These people have supported me, cheered for me, informed me, criticized me, and helped me embark on some of the most memorable journeys of my life. I never would have made it without them.

To celebrate this illustrious anniversary, and to thank you for being the best audience an author could ever ask for, I have written extra chapters for each of my 8 ongoing projects. I present them to you now, and humble myself before you. Were it not for you, these stories never would have come into being, or lasted nearly as long as they have.

Thank you again. You all have changed my life.

Here's to another decade of adventure and exploration.

Enjoy.

One.

Albus Dumbledore was a man never surprised by anything. He had made a lofty, illustrious career out of keeping a cool head in every contingency, to the point that people thought he'd forgotten how to be angry or surprised.

Still, his bushy white eyebrows raised the slightest bit when it was not Rubeus Hagrid who came stomping up to him with little Harry Potter in tow, but Sirius Black—flinty-eyed with his teeth clenched, his long mane of black hair half-covering a face gone as white as the old wizard's beard, the man cut an impressive figure. At odds with the last Black's intimidating stature and thoroughly incensed glare, little Harry was looking around at Privet Drive with a bright, curious, and thoroughly innocuous expression. He had two fingers popped into his mouth, and seemed blissfully unaware of anything that might have been storming through his godfather's head.

Minerva McGonagall did not speak as Sirius approached, nor when Hagrid's enormous shadow announced his arrival some way behind. She shot a glance at Dumbledore, who seemed entirely unruffled. In fact, his eyes seemed to be sparkling. "Good evening, Sirius," he said. Sirius grunted a reply. As Dumbledore approached, Harry reached out his hands toward him, cooing curiously. The ancient wizard chuckled and ruffled the boy's hair. "And a good evening to you, as well, Harry."

"I hear told you've got ideas on Harry's living arrangements," Sirius said darkly.

"Ever to the point, my boy," Dumbledore chuckled.

"You're damned right, I'm to the point. You've managed about six hours before spitting on the Potters' memory. Color me curious, but I find that…troubling."

"Sirius!" Hagrid growled. "Yeh wanter watch yer tone."

Sirius scoffed.

Dumbledore regarded them both calmly; indeed, almost coldly. He said, "What I find curious, Sirius, is…how Lord Voldemort has managed to circumvent one of the most powerful feats of magic we wizards are capable of. It seems to me that that, more than any plans for the future we might discuss, should be…figured out first. Wouldn't you agree, Sirius?"

The young wizard's countenance shifted at once.

Jaw set, teeth clenched, Sirius said, "We put a wrench in the works," sounding utterly disgusted with himself. "Some days before we set to use the charm, I suggested we use Peter as Secret-Keeper. We, that is Remus and I, would keep an eye on him. Protect him. We figured…we figured none of them would ever think to target Wormtail, of all people. You know, same as we all, they're bloody narcissists. So caught up in their own self-importance they can't see past their damn noses anymore. They'd sooner scrape Peter off their shoes as look at him."

Dumbledore's gaze was no longer light and airy but searching, scrutinizing. Sirius stared the old warlock straight in the eye without batting an eyelash. Harry took his fingers out of his mouth and thrust out his arms toward a passing insect. "Gah!" the boy declared. "Bah! Buh!"

"Yes, Harry," Sirius murmured absently in a much softer tone than before, still staring hotly at Dumbledore. "That's a bug. Hush, now."

"What do you think happened?" Dumbledore asked, after a long silence.

"Tonight, before…before I found Harry," Sirius replied, grimacing and shaking his head as he finally broke eye contact with his leader, "I went to check on Peter. To see if he was…if he was safe. But he was gone. The place we set up for him was empty. No sign of a struggle, no sign anyone came in or out of it since the last time." He sighed, looking back up at Dumbledore. "Either someone overpowered him so much that he didn't have time to fight back, or tricked him. The information must have been forced out of him, somehow. Threatened, maybe. Or…tortured. Maybe…maybe Imperius. Or Cruciatus. I don't know." Dumbledore frowned thoughtfully. "I…please, believe me. You…you know me. I wouldn't have let this…if I'd been…if I…"

There was something in his face, something in his eyes. Not guilt, not desperation. No, it was more—resignation. The look of a man going through motions with no hope or belief that it would make any difference. For some reason that even Dumbledore, who was perhaps the most astute judge of character currently living, couldn't pinpoint…Sirius Black looked wrong. It wasn't just that he looked older than his twenty-one years. It wasn't just that in his eyes was a perfect mixture of compassion, grief, and naked fury. It wasn't even that he looked like a caged beast; though he did.

It was like seeing double, without actually seeing double. Like his vision was blurred, even though it wasn't. Looking at the last Black at this moment, Dumbledore had the absolutely mystifying experience of wondering if the man was even human.

"There will be time to think of that later," Dumbledore said finally, and wasn't sure who he was talking to. Far from relieving the anxiety on Sirius's face, this seemed to further inflame it. "For now, we must find Peter Pettigrew. Where was he staying?"

Sirius opened his mouth to speak, then stopped.

His painful mixture of expressions all coalesced into one: blank, stupid confusion.

And he said,

"I…don't…remember."

Two.

People are strange, fickle creatures. Show them that a rat is in their house, and they throw their arms in the air and screech. Show them that a rat is on their street, and they glance at it only fleetingly before wondering why they've wasted their time; after all, it's only a rat.

Peter Pettigrew, nicknamed Wormtail, scurried along the gutters of a city miles upon miles separated from Godric's Hollow. He didn't pay any attention to the forest of stomping, stalking, kicking feet as Muggles went about their business; he only had eyes—black, beady eyes—for the wet, musty road before his claws. His mind had never been particularly quick, but it was thorough. Try as he might to ignore the implications of what he had just done, what he had just had a hand in doing, thoughts and fears and panicked leaps sifted through his human mind into his animal mind.

Wormtail was usually able to ignore the darker parts of himself. At school, he had always busied himself with remembering that he was a part of the most famous gang that Gryffindor House had ever seen. At school, he had been somebody. He had been important. Only the deepest, sharpest bits of him ever spoke up and said his fame was by proxy; that nobody knew him except by his connection to the quietly brilliant Remus Lupin, the handsomely irritating James Potter, the Byronically arrogant Sirius Black. They were the charmers, the geniuses, the people no one liked to admit that they liked.

Wormtail was the afterthought.

Small surprise that he was the rat. Not majestic like James, nor tragic like Remus, nor even imposing like Sirius. No; his animal was a grey-furred pest whose best hope was to be ignored. What did that say about his personality? What did it say about the truth behind the mask he liked to wear so often that even he didn't feel it? Oh, sure, it had been helpful; something that small could get places the others couldn't, see things other people didn't. The perfect spy, a thoroughbred scout. He'd been vital.

But that was all he could claim. They needed him.

But did they want him?

What did it really mean if you only kept someone around because you needed them? Not much. What did it mean if the only reason your friends ever smiled at you was because they were thinking about what you could do for them? Not much. That's all they ever thought about. James was spoiled; he always got what he wanted. Sirius was the same way. And Remus…well, Remus was desperate. He'd have befriended anyone just for the chance to remember he was alive. He'd strike up conversation with a tree if he had to.

Was it any real surprise that he didn't have the stomach for what they wanted out of him this time? Secret-Keeper. The most important job you'll ever take on. The greatest burden anyone can ever take. You're fit for it, Wormtail, honest. We trust you. We believe in you. Now go on and put yourself in mortal peril for us, while we go off and hide.

Hadn't it always been that way? Asking him to keep lookout, then ditch him as soon as he told them someone was coming? Asking him to squeeze under a door and see who was there, then disappear so that when he scrambled his way back out he didn't know where the bloody hell they'd gone?

It was only when he was thinking like this, only when he managed to convince himself they deserved it, that James's face didn't haunt his memory. That Lily's voice didn't echo like phantoms in his rounded ears. It was only when he told himself that they'd had it coming for years that he was able to forget the atrocity he had committed.

Times like these, he wondered why the Sorting Hat hadn't put him into Slytherin.

And then he thought about what it would have been like to have every classmate trying to find some way to use him, and felt relieved that he hadn't been put there, after all. And then he thought about what Godric Gryffindor would have thought of his behavior, and the relief disappeared.

It was a joke. All of it, some cosmic joke played on him by a God too cruel and conniving to admit it.

A God with white skin, red eyes, and a Yew wand with a Phoenix feather in it.

Three.

"What do you mean, you don't remember?" Minerva McGonagall demanded. She looked thoroughly nonplussed and more than a little exasperated. "Didn't you say that you just came from there?"

"I…I lost consciousness," Sirius said, his eyes searching for something. "After I found Peter missing, but before…before I found Harry. There's…nothing. I can't remember a damned thing." He leveled a pleading, panicky look at Dumbledore.

The elderly wizard rubbed his bearded chin. "It would seem that this situation is quite a bit more pressing than I thought. If Peter has been taken in by Lord Voldemort's supporters, then he is in grave danger." He turned to Minerva. "We must find him. Send word to the rest of the Order, won't you?"

"Of course."

Dumbledore turned back to Sirius. "We'll send word to Remus. Perhaps he can help shed some light on this situation. In the meantime, Sirius, come with me. I should like to show you something." His smile finally returned. "Bring Harry along. Hagrid?"

"Yes, sir, Professor Dumbledore, sir?" the big man intoned.

"Accompany Professor McGonagall, won't you?"

Hagrid nodded gravely.

Dumbledore began to walk, and Sirius followed. Harry was still babbling nonsensically. Privet Drive was stone-silent, and their boots echoed in the sterile, midnight air. Neither man spoke, and so it was only Harry's voice that radiated in the stillness, accentuating their movements like the murmurings of a ghost.

Dumbledore stopped at Number Four, watching the house pensively as though it were a person, and waited for Sirius to stop beside him. He gestured. "This is his freedom, Sirius," came a solemn whisper. "Here, we can protect him. From Voldemort, from fear, from stress, until he is ready for them. Here, we can let him grow up free of our meddlesome influences."

"His mother's blood," Sirius muttered, realizing what this was about. "You want to protect him that way. Fair and good, Dumbledore, but Lily told me stories about her family. They're as likely to accept Harry as part of the family as burn the bloody house down. Lily's blood or not, they'll make him miserable. God's my witness, Dumbledore. He's better off with us, danger or no danger. Let me fill the spot they asked me to fill. Let me look after him. Let me...try to make up for what I've done to them."

Dumbledore frowned again. "You would risk his life…for pride?"

Sirius scoffed. "I've no pride, Dumbledore. Whatever pride I had got stomped out too long ago to recount, and left arrogance in its wake. But this isn't about that. This is about teaching Harry what he needs to know. Better he grow up knowing, than thrust it all on him at once."

"You do not think it wise to let him have a childhood free from fear of the Death Eaters? Without the foreknowledge that there is a group of people dedicated heart and soul to killing him?"

"Not only do I not think it wise, I think it abysmally stupid," Sirius said. "It occurs to me you're framing these questions like this on purpose. You know damn well this isn't about keeping him safe for his own sake. This is about taking him out of the equation. You're banking on us being able to take them all out long before Harry starts school. That's what you want. You want to invite him into our world once the danger's fully passed." His eyes narrowed. "You also want him to grow up in a complete family, no matter how unfit they are, so that he won't feel neglected. You think they'll grow to love him."

Dumbledore didn't answer.

"There's a problem with that," Sirius continued. "They won't. I met them once. Looked at me like I had three heads, and they might explode at any given second and shower them with blood and pus. They mistrust magic on a medieval level, Dumbledore. They'd drown Harry if it were legal. Like a sick cat."

"Isn't that a bit harsh?"

"That's the sad part. No. Listen to me, Dumbledore: hectic and dangerous as it might be for him, having to look over his shoulder whenever he damn well steps outside, he's better off doing that than staying here. Protection or no protection. Voldemort or no Voldemort. Besides…we can protect him."

"Like we protected Peter Pettigrew?" Dumbledore murmured, harsher than was normal for him.

Sirius flinched violently.

He seemed to decide something in the silence that followed. "If that's the way you feel about it, take him." He held Harry out. "Take him, and ship me off to the fucking island. If you're going to damn one of us, you may's well damn both of us. But you know…it's one thing to punish me for what's happened. It's a whole new level of evil to punish him. So do it if you like, Albus Dumbledore. But if you have any decency, don't you dare sleep through another night for it."

Dumbledore watched the young wizard without comment for a long, long time. Sirius remained resolute, holding the infant out in front of him. Harry reached out, clutching for Dumbledore's beard. For nearly a full minute, the two men stared at each other.

"Gah!" Harry said.

Dumbledore lowered his head, and gestured dismissively.

"James and Lily did, indeed, leave Harry to you. It was fully in their minds that the Dursley family was here, but they elected you. It is your decision, not mine, how he should be raised. I leave it to you to decide what is best for him."

Sirius flinched again.

But then he smiled, a positively radiant expression on his face as he held his godson to his side again. "Thank you," he said, voice choked with unshed tears. "Thank you, Professor."

Dumbledore chuckled. "An old man often ignores the wisdom of the young." He breathed deeply. "Now then. I will join Hagrid and Professor McGonagall in the search for Peter. You should find a place to let Harry get some rest."

Sirius nodded. "Yes, sir."

A moment later, Privet Drive was cloaked in silence again.

The Dursley Family would wake the next morning, and never realize how close they came to having their lives changed forever.

Don't get me wrong. I like Dumbledore. I like him a great deal.

But sometimes I think he's got communication issues. I'm sure every fan has noticed at one point or another that half of the conflicts in each of the books could have been solved if Dumbledore had just talked to Harry. Or if Harry had talked to him, for that matter.

Communication is at the heart of problem-solving, and with this story I'm trying to inject some more of that into the wizarding world. Sometimes, there seems to be precious little of it.

And with this, the timeline of Harry Potter's life is changed forever.

Exciting, isn't it?

Next week, we'll see how things go with Sirius playing padre.

Should be interesting. See you then.