Chapter 8

- There is no try -

"So let me get this right. Without ever facing a dementor before, with only a fair idea where Azkaban was and no idea of what wards, or other defences it had, you set off with just a pair of borrowed brooms, James's old invisibility cloak, a few potions and an untested magical box that you believed should be able to trap dementors?"

Harry nodded with a small grin.

Sirius burst out laughing, "and I thought we were crazy when we were young."

Sirius was looking at lot better. Two weeks of sun, surf and a whole swag of healing potions had done wonders for him. Occasionally a haunted look would cross his face or he would wake whimpering fully believing that he was still in prison. But the episodes were already becoming less frequent. Aunt Petunia had turned out to be a good listener and after a week Sirius had suddenly started opening up about all his fears, she had sat with him holding his hand listening and being supportive. It had helped.

The biggest changes had happened over the week since Harry had joined them. Harry had arrived in a good mood and found everyone very happy to see him. The flight over had also been fun and he had been well treated by the flight crew. The airline did a good job of looking after unaccompanied minors though one of the flight crew seemed to want to treat him as if he was a baby.

Harry had held of the fully story of the rescue until Sirius had coughed up dozens of stories of his parents from their Hogwarts years and the complete story of Peter's betrayal, the quick version he had extracted from Sirius during the rescue attempt had only been enough to ensure he was doing the right thing. During the telling of his story he had glossed over the use of his force powers. To avoid outright lying about certain things he had told Sirius that there were a few things that needed to remain a secret for the time being. Sirius pestered him about that in good humour, but didn't get upset when Harry refused to budge on the matter.

Harry was also very pleased that Sirius mental barriers were strengthening as well. He had been concerned that he was going to have to be very careful with speaking with him. He was going to teach him a few muggle meditation techniques that he had found very useful when he was just getting starting developing his force powers, they were the same ones he had taught Neville and Hermione and, though they weren't magical, they did help strengthen one's mental barriers.

"And they're still not looking for me?" Sirius asked after calming down.

Harry shrugged, "It hasn't been in the news or anything. But neither has the disappearance of some of their dementors. I tried to keep my presence quiet and made sure none of the guard saw me coming. They would all have woke up safe and slightly confused in their own quarters. Maybe waking up with only a hazy memory of the previous night isn't that uncommon there."

Harry didn't mention that he had hit each with a power force suggestion that the nothing unusual had happened that night. Now realising that being around dementors lowered mental defences he wondered just how overpowered his force suggestions had been. Hopefully he hadn't damaged their minds in anyway.

Sirius gaze turned distant, "I remember inspections… though not how frequent. Very hard to keep track of time there, I think I was unconscious a lot of the time. It still is hard to believe it was ten years. Sometimes it feels shorter. Other times it feel longer. Oh hell. I'm rambling again.

"It's okay Sirius. I'm just glad you're out. Did you want to return to London for anything? Best to do it soon before news gets out."

Sirius shook his head, "There is nothing there for me there now. You're the only thing I would go back for and whilst you are at Hogwarts most of the time there really doesn't seem any point. I'm happy being a Koh Samurian as long as you keep visiting."

Harry rolled his eyes at Sirius latest pet word but he couldn't disagree, Koh Samui was a nice place and he doubted many english wizards would visit the beaches here.

"Harry." Sirius's tone had turned serious and he picked up a sealed letter from the nearby bookcase, "When you go back I want you to take this letter to Gringotts. You've been listed as my heir since shortly after I became your godfather but this will make sure that all my vaults are transferred to you now rather than waiting. It's also got instructions on what the goblins are to do if the ministry decides to declare me dead."

"What? Why you transferring them to me? I don't want all your money."

"Hey! It's not all for you boy." Sirius chuckled, the serious expression gone as quickly as it had appeared, "I'm relying on you to send a very good sized chunk of that money to me. It might be cheaper over here but if I want to live like a king I'm going to need more baht. There's also a list of things in there I want you to bring over next time you visit. The goblins will help you sort and package it, they're being well paid for the service so take advantage of it. You can leave the old wands in the vault though, still can't believe both of those two you brought work just as well as my original. Damn lucky. Anyhow, come on, let's go join Duds at the pool. The girls here are stunning and I don't like the idea of my godson being the only one without a girl at his side."

Harry sighed but didn't argue the point. He'd already explained that he wasn't looking for a relationship but Sirius thought it criminal that Dudley was hanging around with a tanned long legged daughter of an Australian scuba instructor whilst Harry spent most of his time lazying in the sun with boring text books. Even Sirius had made a few female friends as he often boasted.

The rest of holiday passed too quickly and there were lots of tears when Harry and the Dursley's waved farewell to a well disguised Sirius and Sandy, who was now officially Dudley's girlfriend. It looked like the whole family was going to be coming back for the summer holidays.

- There is no try -

The final term of the year moved along quickly and, whilst the emphasis of the teachers moved to the fifth and seventh year, Harry still managed to find the occasional moment to receive private tuition from both Professor Flitwick and Professor O'Berne. Neville and Hermione did finally manage to convince him to help with some of their study groups. Hermione was racking up a good amount of additional credit and Neville was progressing well towards his goal of being a teacher, something he had wanted to be since he was quite young.

Harry continued the study of mathematics, electronics and science that he had started during his holiday. He had gone a little crazy with a mail order catalog and now had over fifty new books to read. He finally judged himself ready to start on the project that he felt would mark the difference between being a Youngling and a Padawan. It wasn't a title he would ever admit to, not least because he didn't have a true master, but it felt it a good exercise to track his progress against the way of the Jedi.

His first attempt at using a combination of magic and science to create a plasma source had made him very thankful that O'Berne had begun teaching him shielding spells. That disaster had cost him nearly his entire stock of his mechanical and electronics components, a dozen books and one set of school robes. His second attempt, a few weeks later, only cost him the table, a dozen rune stones, but only those electronics and the mechanical components he was using for the test. He was learning and had kept everything else well clear of the testing area. It looked like he was going have a lot more trips to the muggle post office that he had all his muggle supplies delivered to in the future.

His third attempt, without any magic assistance, worked as per the design and learning from his mistakes he slowly replaced a few key components with magical equivalents until he had the source of plasma that would eventually form the base of his lightsaber. That it was currently not even close to being portable, let alone hand held, was something he would have to work on.

- There is no try -

Eventually the papers reported that Sirius Black had died during an attempted escape from Azkaban. That this news came a month and a half after the Quibbler had reported two weeks of an unusually high amount of Auror activity around Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley didn't seem like much of a coincidence.

Harry didn't think much of the limited selection of wizarding publications. The Daily Prophet was the worst type of tabloid and the Quibbler was mostly a tongue in cheek poke at the establishment written by some obviously intelligent individuals with a twisted sense of humour. It was a chore extracting any sort of objective news out of either. He had checked out the french alternatives, and though they were slightly less subjective, a dedicated reader could be forgiven for believing that the rest of the world didn't exist. His primary school german wasn't up to the task of even attempting to read a german paper and he had no time to put the effort into learning any other languages. Also speaking passable french already put him ahead of most of the british wizarding world.

A few days later Professor McGonagall hand delivered a letter from Gringotts containing an invitation to attend the reading of Sirius Black's will. In response to Harry's query as why the letter, addressed to him, hadn't come straight to him Professor McGonagall gave a very dry answer involving wards to protect him, though he could detect a significant amount of irritation and recent anger, though it was not directed at him. When he asked about the details of the wards she promised that she would see to it before leaving with a very determined expression set on her face. Harry was certain that she was off to see Dumbledore.

The will reading was an amusing experience. At least for some of the participants. The ministry had delayed the announcement of Sirius's death till a full month after it had been declared. The Gringotts legal goblin that Sirius and Harry had hired under a heft retainer explained what had happened in layman's terms. The Malfoy's had, in the intervening month, spent a great deal of money trying to invalidate the will that somehow they had managed to get the day Sirius was declared dead. Unfortunately due to it having being written well before Sirius was convicted and the only beneficiary being related and both his legally and magically heir ruled out any grounds for a challenge. They tried to argue that it was impossible for anyone else to be his magical heir as Sirius didn't actually officially become lord till he was already in Azkaban, and hence he couldn't have undertaken the ritual. Unfortunately, for the Malfoy's, that it was impossible did not matter. The ritual had actually occurred shortly after Harry first arrived in Koh Samui and had turned out to be a very simple process involving the giving of a few drops of blood, a few words and the Sirius's lordship ring.

The will was also open ended enough so that everything that Sirius had inherited when his mother and grandfather has passed away also followed the same line of inheritance and Harry got everything. The most amusing thing to Harry was that it was all a sham. The goblins knew that Sirius was still alive, but they were being paid extremely well to act the part and, as Sirius was effectively gifting everything to Harry, there were no laws being broken. The goblins were very careful to only tell the truth and let everyone else make incorrect assumptions.

There was an attempt by the Malfoys to attend the reading, presumably so they could make another appeal or disrupt it, the ministry sent a representative and finally Dumbledore also turned up trying to use his influence to sit in on it. The goblins refused them all and Harry ended up listening to the fake will reading alone much to his and the goblin's amusement. After thanking the goblins Harry instructed the goblins to enact the transfer instructions that Sirius had provided and a large amount of money was moved to various international banks. Sirius had planned to leave the majority of the money to Harry but Harry knew Sirius was going to be very surprised as he had only been expecting to have access to the money from his personal accounts. There was a lot more than that in the family Black accounts and a property as well. So Harry padded out the transfers significantly.

Learning that he was the new owner of 12 Grimmauld Place, a location that had featured frequently in Sirius's stories, was amusing. He would have liked to visit it but knew that since Sirius was still actually alive he would have to be added to the wards first. It would have to wait.

Before returning to school Harry he visited all the vaults that he could access. Some were warded in a way similar to Grimmauld Place and he had didn't see the need to attempt to break through, especially in the presence of the goblins. He wasn't even sure his method would work on a physical barrier. Inside Sirius's personal vault he discovered a collection of magical crystals that got Harry to thinking about using crystals instead of rune stones to create the plasma containment ward he had been working on. He would ask Sirius if he could experiment with them during the summer break.

As the school year came to an end, Harry discovered to his amazement that he now had quite a few friends. Thanks mostly to Neville's efforts both Harry and Hermione were now part of a much large social circle that included most of the first years and even a few older students. Harry was surprised when he discovered that he really liked having friends.

- There is no try -

"Aunt Petunia this are my friends Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger"

Aunt Petunia smiled down at the two smiling youngsters, "So, you are the two that have been giving my Harry a run for top place in your year? It's a pleasure to meet you both."

Neville laughed, "Hello Mrs Dursley. Well its Harry and Hermione that are fighting for the top place I'm just happy to be not far behind these two in all my classes."

Hermione, "Not so in herbology, Neville has first place well and truly tied up there. It's a pleasure to meet you Mrs Dursley."

"Petunia or Aunt Petunia is fine. No problems with the Ravenclaws then? I believe I heard they were meant to be the house that usually dominated the rankings."

Harry shrugged, "We tend to get along with them all pretty well now."

Neville laughed and elbowed Harry, "Listen to him. If it wasn't for Harry half of them wouldn't have got anywhere near the mark that they did. It took a bit of effort but we finally convinced Harry to help with our weekly study sessions. Hermione and I run them but it's Harry that comes up with the exercises that keep the Ravenclaws coming back."

"Ignore him. Neville and Hermione run very good study sessions all by themselves. I just help with a few ideas." a smiling Harry said.

"Well that all sounds wonderful. It's good to see you all working together. Now, I've already given permission to Harry to visit during the summer holiday, have you both heard from your parents?"

Hermione nodded, "Yes Aunt Petunia. My parents are quite happy for me to go camping with you for the last week of July and I'll stay for Harry's Birthday and travel with him to Neville's."

Neville was also nodding, 'My gran had already said she is happy for me to come camping as well and she has also extended the invite to include you and the rest of your family to my Birthday. Oh, there is my Gran. Please come over and I'll introduce you."

- There is no try -

Author Note: And that's the end of first year, I've had fun writing it and I'm happy that it's entertained so many people. I'm loving all the feedback and reviews. There have been plenty of great ideas sent my way and I've already added a few during my editing and proofreading stages. I'm looking forward to reading and use more. I love constructive criticism, and whilst I write mostly for my own enjoyment I still try to take advantage of opportunities to improve my writing.

I've already made a start on second year and have some major plot ideas down but it'll be quite awhile before I start posting it so there is still time to make an impact on the story. I also have some other stories that need some attention.

Thanks for reading.