The sun was blistering hot on that first day of summer vacation. Hot enough that most families chose to stay indoors with the air conditioners turned up full. The homes on Privet Drive were seemingly normal. All but one, the house at Number 4 held a family that was anything but average and in it's backyard the center of it all, a boy who was meant to be something extraordinary.

Harry knelt on the hot grass in front of Aunt Petunia's flowerbed pulling up weeds with his bare hands. Crouched over the garden as he pulled out the last of the weeds he stood up wiping the sweat from his brow and successfully streaking dirt across one his face without caring. He pushed the wheelbarrow of weeds towards the garden shed and then set about hauling the potted flowers and other material he'd need to the flowerbed.  He'd already mowed the lawn and trimmed the hedges. He sat on the ground again and started planting the new flowers his Aunt had gotten.  Ironically they were lilies. His Aunt Petunia was his mother's older sister. Harry had been sent to live with her and her family when he was just one year old after his parents died killed by a dark wizard known as Voldemort and to a lesser few as Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Albus Dumbledore saw fit that night all those years ago to place him in the care of his only living relatives, muggles, away from the wizarding world away from the camera flashes and endless attention that being the boy-who-lived would bring him.

The boy-who-lived. Harry thought dismally as he worked to pat the dirt around another placed flower. I've lived all right- bringing the downfall of the most powerful dark wizard in years at only one year old…I lived, my parents died. People targeting him because of the fame he'd only discovered upon the acceptance of his Hogwarts letter when he turned 11, he'd recently seen quite literally many people die as a result of that same man two of which were Cedric Diggory and Sirius Black, his godfather, the only parent he'd known.

Sirius. When he was younger and the cupboard under the stairs was where he was forced to sleep he'd often watched the shadows coming through the grate on the door wondering what his real family would have been like. Sirius though he'd only known him a short while, had been the answer to those childhood dreams. But Sirius was dead and in his mind he could blame Voldemort obviously; and Snape for goading his godfather to action, but secretly he placed most blame upon himself. It was because of him that Sirius went to the Department of Mysteries that night… that he fell into the veil. He was responsible for so many deaths a quiet voice whispered in his mind.

If that was not the least of his worries Dumbledore had after all he'd been through this last school term told him about the prophecy and then sent him on his way to the Dursley's with the quiet words to not send any letters to his friends because he might place them in danger.

For all his fourteen years Harry Potter had experienced more sorrow than any adult could imagine, he'd listened to those adults and tried his best to do the things they asked of him. The Dursley's working him since he was old enough to walk and properly clean and cook had relegated him to their personal slave, and then there was the wizarding world. One he'd only really known of since his 11thbirthday but all the same the people expected him to be a savior. They expected him to be this infallible person but never stopped to realize that he was just that, a person, and human. The wizarding world had readily turned against him when he didn't fit the mold of what they felt the boy-who-lived should be. When they'd discovered his parseltongue abilities, they'd labeled him the Heir of Slytherin, and therefore a dark wizard in the making, sent cautious, fearful glances his way after Cedric's death. His so-called best friend Ron had even turned on him out of jealousy, and kept secrets from him time and again. If people he was supposed to trust could turn against him so easily…. It was time for him keep some secrets of his own.