I've decided to just finish this fic myself, but only this first book. Merlin knows I don't need to add yet another copy of this series under my belt.

You can now request The Summoning- (Philosopher's Stone edition only) and I will email you a copy with book context as well.

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'It was a dream,' Harry told himself as he lay curled into himself, grasping as tightly as he still could to unconsciousness. 'I dreamed I was in a room full of wizards, with my dad's actual friend even! I'm going to open my eyes and find myself still in my cupboard.'

There was no sound though to disturb him, and he clung to the delusion as long as he could, until someone came bursting into his room.

Harry sat up abruptly to find Ron, smiling absently at him and apologizing for waking him, but he'd lost his shoes, and his dad would kill him if he went back without those!

Morning started with some all around confusion. While most of them were on the same sleeping schedule, a few in particular were used to more early rises. Arthur ended up waking up first, and after checking on his children and the others Ron's age, but then he noticed his youngest son didn't have the shoes he'd come in here with. Arthur couldn't blame him if he wasn't keeping too close of a track on it, they'd sort of had a lot to go through yesterday, but still he knew it couldn't be too many places here so Arthur went in search of it in the reading room first. He easily found them under the couch where he'd been sitting, and was heading back through the kitchen, but quickly stopped when he realized he'd be walking in on an awkward scene.

He'd never met either of those men before yesterday, and their actions since he had weren't endearing him to try to get to know them better. Black of course was the poster child of Azkaban, and notoriously You-Know-Who's right hand man. He was a madman, and rumor had it he'd even been the one to get Lily and James killed. Now Dumbleodre, the man who'd given testimony for this, was saying that he'd been mistaken. Arthur had no clue what had changed, but the man's cold actions towards everyone around him and the way he seemed to be keeping a particular eye on Harry felt worrisome. Of course, he'd been one of the loudest in the argument against Dumbledore advocating keeping Harry out of that abusive household when they got back, so maybe Arthur was missing something about him.

The other he'd never even heard of, but he had all the marks of a werewolf. Arthur had never met one in person to form an honest opinion, but his brutish and violent actions upon their arrival and the spastic way he kept acting around Black weren't exactly encouraging. At least he'd only been acting that way towards someone Arthur couldn't blame him for, but they still seemed too deranged as even Arthur wouldn't have started strangling random people even if they had been in Azkaban.

Even now the two were making him uneasy, as they were clearly having some kind of argument that was clearly one sided. Remus seemed to be trying to say something, but Black was literally paying him no mind, or at least trying to. Arthur didn't feel the need to listen in, so he ducked back towards the reading room out of hearing range.

Whatever it had been over, it must have been quick, because Remus came wandering in a few moments later, and looked surprised to see him.

Arthur quickly held up the shoes, and said, "Ron must have left this in here last night."

Remus had a slight frown on his face as he looked at Arthur and back towards the door, the clear question of if he'd heard, but then Ron came in with a panicky look on his face which quickly relaxed when he thanked his dad for grabbing his shoes for him.

Somehow breakfast felt a bit more tense than the previous meal, maybe that was because of how many people noticed Harry wasn't eating with the same gusto of last night. Instead he was picking at best at some eggs, and eating as little as the prisoner who'd been living off of meager meals given only frequently enough to survive was not encouraging to anyone.

When asked though, Harry just said he wasn't that hungry, and led the way to the reading room.

With one more glance around to check to make sure everyone was ready, Neville opened the book and went to his chapter.

"Woah, wait, is Hagrid showing up," Charlie yelped in shock as the chapter title was read.

"I thought it was supposed to be you," Tonks accused Dumbledore.

"I agreed I would be looking into the matter," Dumbledore calmly acknowledged, "but I can see myself easily sending Hagrid in my stead."

Harry's mind flipped back to the first chapter, of the friendly giant of a man named Hagrid who had taken him to Private Drive in the first place, and imagined that in a few more months it would be quite thrilling to really meet him.

Neville did not yell that as loud as should have been intended, and it made the others chuckle. Hagrid knocking could sound quite startling if you weren't expecting it.

"Didn't need that description," Ron smirked.

Arthur really wanted to scold his youngest son for saying such things about anyone, even if he didn't disagree, but when both Charlie and Harry laughed and Ron beamed Arthur couldn't bring himself to do it.

"A what!?" Hermione squeaked in surprise.

"You mean you don't know what that is either?" Charlie asked in surprise, he'd never heard of the thing.

"No, I just can't believe he'd bring something like that," Hermione pressed a horrified hand to her mouth. "That thing could really hurt someone, and he can't have gotten it legally, the laws make it nearly impossible for a common citizen to own a gun. I just can't believe he's doing all of this against someone."

"I'm sure everything will be fine," Remus tried to comfort the girl who was clearly getting panicky. "You've never met Hagrid, but I can promise you this won't be much of a problem for him."

Hermione looked dubious, even hearing about his large size doesn't mean he wouldn't have a large hole in him when that rifle went off, but didn't protest anymore.

"Err, why would someone think otherwise?" Arthur asked.

"It's an expression," Tonks shrugged, "it's the Muggles way of telling Hagrid he's got a gun."

"Ah, how odd," Arthur smiled nonetheless at the information.

"That was pretty violent of Hagrid," Remus arched a brow in surprise. "What's his game in breaking the door down?"

"Maybe he just got a little carried away," Charlie shrugged, the big guy had been known to forget his own strength.

He couldn't help it, Charlie started snickering at Hagrid. He actually wanted to shake his friend's hand, as he knew that would have given those rotten Dursleys a good scare which they deserved, and he wasn't even trying yet. Let Hagrid get one glimpse of Harry and things were going to get even better.

Harry relaxed slightly at the thought. Despite his compassion in the first chapter, it was nice to hear that he did something like smile at Harry upon first seeing him, a rarity for the boy.

Harry's eyes flipped wide in surprise now, his breath hitching in shock. His mind scrambled to try and picture this, tried to put some images together of his parents with this scrap of information.

Remus and Sirius couldn't help but jolt a little in surprise, then wanted to smack themselves. They'd just heard last night that Harry had no clue what his parents looked like, but they'd been so busy wallowing in their own pity it hadn't even occurred to them yet to share that kind of thing with Harry. Now Hagrid had beaten them to the punch.

Sirius felt like a waste as he realized he wasn't going to be much help in doing so otherwise, but he still yelled at his brain that it had better remember something about them by the end of the day he could try to share.

Remus felt ashamed, because this had been what he'd really been wanting to say to Harry last night, but he'd chickened out at the last moment. He may have been the one to mention Harry looked like James, but he'd skipped out before adding anything more on. He could still try to make up for it though, go back and say something to Harry at the next opportunity, though what he still wasn't sure.

"Literally," Tonks smirked.

Hermione's mouth flopped open in shock, wondering just how strong this Hagrid was to have done something like that! She couldn't deny it did make her feel slightly better now that the weapon couldn't hurt anyone, but it was still as mind boggling up there with the rest of the magic she'd heard of lately.

"I wish," Remus grumbled.

Harry cocked his head to the side as he heard Neville say that, it was a rather odd thing to hear for the first time especially as it wasn't technically his birthday now.

Now Harry's mouth was actually opening and shutting in shock. He tried to control himself, he realized he was being an idiot getting so worked up over something like this, but the emotions really weren't being beaten down at the overwhelming gratitude the stranger was showing him over the Dursleys who'd never in his life done such a thing.

"Can't even blame you for that," Ron chuckled, "this has all come out of nowhere for you."

"What does that mean exactly?" Hermione swiftly asked. Now that she had a name to put with the odd chapter title, she wanted more details.

Dumbledore happily supplied for the bright girl, "it is Hagrid's job at Hogwarts to see over every bit of our grounds at the school, it is also he who escorts our new students into the school for the first time."

Hermione nodded in understanding.

"I sincerely doubt the Dursleys brought along anything stronger," Tonks rolled her eyes.

The more stuff being mentioned the more Harry's eyes widened in shock, now thinking that McGonagall's joke from the first chapter didn't seem so insane now. How much stuff could fit in a jacket?

"Oh that's right, he's having the worst day of his life and all," Tonks scoffed, "so of course he thinks he's going to get fed."

"It really is a miracle he didn't storm over and steal them from Hagrid," Charlie agreed.

"Guess he's more scared than hungry, that's got to be saying something," Tonks snickered.

Sirius couldn't help but feel the first true grin spread across his face as he wanted to thank Hagrid. Finally someone who was putting Harry first.

"Oh this should be brilliant," Arthur muttered to himself, hoping Hagrid would be as outraged as they'd been upon the Dursleys keeping that kind of secret from Harry Potter.

"Why would you apologize?" Neville asked in surprise.

Harry just shrugged, unsure how to explain that when someone was mad, Harry knew the best way to temper off the situation first was to start apologizing.

"Where hopefully they'll stay," Remus muttered absently.

Sirius' grin continued to widen into a full blown smirk. He'd had a few run-ins with Hagrid in his youth, unavoidable when you traipsed the grounds as often as they did, but never before had he been so fond of the guy. They were all vague and had gaping holes in the middle, no one exactly came to mind, but he was positive they'd still happened. It still bothered him a bit he couldn't remember Hagrid's voice.

The expression, if anyone besides Remus and Harry had cared to look, was pretty shocking of the man who had so far been trying to listen as expressionless as possible, but they were far too invested in listening to Hagrid to notice such things.

Remus tore his eyes away from Sirius with a surprised snort, correcting, "Harry that's not what he meant at all."

"I didn't know," Harry defended uneasily, wondering if he was going to get in trouble for doing so, but when Remus just looked surprised at Harry talking back rather than angry Harry finished, "it was pretty out of context."

"Fair enough," Remus agreed.

"What an articulate response," Tonks snorted, "I can see why he's a director of a company with skills like that."

Harry was still having trouble wrapping his mind around that, and he'd had a whole night to think on it.

"You can't forbid him from doing anything," Charlie scowled, "he's not like Harry who you boss around."

"He'll regret saying that very soon," Tonks agreed eagerly, wishing she could pluck the book away from Neville so that she could be reading this fantastic time instead.

Ron couldn't help but crack up laughing. He quickly noticed Harry's slightly hurt and confused expression, so Ron tried to control himself and explain, "sorry, I've just never seen someone react to the news before, and it was a bit underwhelming. Though I suppose, you and Hermione both haven't exactly started running around screaming about crazy people yet, so," he finished with a harmless shrug, and Harry couldn't deny his own smile as he agreed he was rather taking this in stride.

He supposed he, like Hermione, were just so happy to be getting any explanation for all the odd things that had happened in their youth, any answer wasn't going to be argued too much.

"Why is that so different?" Hermione asked in surprise. "The other letters were absurdly specific, this one was so general."

"I presume because Hagrid delivered it in person," Dumbledore offered, '' the magic need not be so precise. It is a unique situation, I do not believe one has ever had to be delivered in person before."

Ron couldn't stop yet more laughter, and this time Neville couldn't help but join in.

This time Hermione asked what was so funny, as she found it a perfectly logical question and had been wondering that plus countless other things.

"I don't know," Ron chortled, "it's just that, you read something like that, and that's his first question? It's funny."

"I think it's perfectly reasonable," Hermione frowned at him, thinking he was mocking them too much. "The last part of the letter was the deadline, so he should inform himself how to respond as soon as possible by whatever owling is."

Ron opened his mouth like he was going to argue with her, but then Arthur laid a restraining hand on his shoulder and waved Neville to go on.

Hermione squeaked in shock, her argument with Ron instantly forgotten as she demanded, "is that safe for the poor thing?"

"Oh he's perfectly fine," Remus quickly soothed. "Plenty of wizards will expand their pockets and put some protecting charms on them if they have to carry their owl without their cage for one reason or another."

Hermione looked more impressed at these feats of magic than concerned now, so Neville kept going before she could come up with more questions.

"An impressive feat," Charlie snorted, "as his writing isn't particularly legible right side up."

Those who had been worried earlier about Harry getting to Diagon Alley did relax at that news. It was good that Hagrid had been instructed to do this as well.

"What's a telephone?" Ron asked.

"It's ah, sort of like our owls," Tonks explained, "except, more instantaneous. You can talk directly to someone rather than waiting for a reply."

Ron frowned as he tried to imagine how someone could hear you like that, but didn't ask for more. He knew his dad would be later, so he'd just listen then.

"Well you failed miserably," Remus snapped in outrage. He couldn't stand hearing any more of what they'd done to Harry.

"Muggle-borns can't do magic at home without getting into trouble," Arthur raised a surprised brow.

"Oh Lily got quite a few letters from the Ministry informing her to stop doing otherwise," Dumbledore smiled in remembrance. "She was quite feisty over the fact, her accidental magic didn't quite tamper off when she left school and went home."

"With a sister like that, who can blame her," Tonks snorted.

Harry flinched in shock at hearing his mother be referred to like that. Even if he'd never met her, he didn't take kindly to someone calling her that. It did make him feel the smallest bit better though that Petunia never had said all of this to him, Harry would have hated this to be the first thing he'd heard about his mother, and was now quite grateful Hagrid had said what he did about them first.

Sirius couldn't stop a guttural growl for that lie all over again, he sounded quite mad while impersonating an animal and so was freaking the others out quite a lot, and only stopped when he felt Dumbledore's piercing eyes on him.

Harry still couldn't help a flush of shock at that declaration, still unsure what to do with this scrap of information that he was so famous.

Hermione was very glad Harry had asked that, she'd been wanting to know as well but it had felt rude.

Neville hadn't said the name proper either, but instead had said You-Know-Who like Tonks had. Harry and Hermione exchanged a surprised look, fear starting to sink into them as well as they couldn't imagine someone so evil you couldn't even say their name when he was long dead.

Only when Harry looked over and saw that Dumbledore, Remus, and Sirius had all rolled their eyes at this display did Harry want to ask for more, but instead concentrated on one story at a time and hoped Hagrid would give more details than even Dumbledore had about this.

Remus couldn't help but flinch away from Sirius at the reminder, hating himself more every minute he realized how wrong he'd been that Sirius wasn't one of those people. How could he have been so stupid? He needed to come up with some way to try and talk to him about this, but if Remus couldn't even forgive himself, he doubted Sirius would any time soon.

Dumbledore's expression spoke volumes of how true that would always remain so long as he was headmaster. He knew he would never allow Voldemort to get anywhere near his students.

Sirius was only surprised for the briefest moment at that information before it settled back into his mind like a missing puzzle piece, and for once he felt his shoulders relax at having regained such a memory. He definitely knew what he was going to share with Harry later.

Remus felt his nose wrinkling up with distaste at the hated thought, though honestly the question had never occurred to him. Voldemort's most current followers at that time would have gone to school with James and Lily, and would have easily been able to inform those two were not Death Eater material. Of course, the same should have been true for Sirius, and he and...well the more Remus thought about it the more of an idiot he felt.

Harry knew he should have felt scared at this, he certainly was upset upon learning first hand what had really happened to his parents, but it was all mingled enough with too much warmth that Hagrid was speaking so kindly about his parents. Harry really hoped he'd appear in this room, or that he could meet him very soon when he got a chance to go to this Hogwarts.

Dumbledore sighed heavily. He and one other soul knew why Voldemort had come after Harry that night, and while he did not regret the decision not to share this, he was very sorry indeed it had come down to this happening to a baby.

Harry clapped his hand to his scar like he was trying to smack it off. Suddenly that mark wasn't so cool to him anymore. Instead it meant something much, much worse.

Harry knew what he was going to be feeling, because he was feeling it now. This was more than he'd ever learned in his life, and the bombshell of news just didn't seem to have an end in sight.

All four children shivered at that, even the adults didn't look much better as they all hopped Harry was just imagining that.

Sirius shivered so violently he almost toppled off his perch. That was one of the last memories he had aside from what had gone down between him and a rat, that moment where Hagrid had come out of the ruined house with that baby in his arms. Sirius wished more than anything he'd taken the chance last night and said all this to Harry, that he could at least pretend for these few days they'd have together while these books were being read that he could play some sort of part for Harry. Now he'd missed this opportunity because he was being too much of a coward.

"Wish they weren't," someone muttered.

"So they did beat you!" Sirius howled, lunging to his feet all over again.

Before he could go on a full blown tirade though, Arthur quickly intervened, "listen to the wording. He said if he had it would have, fixed him," he finished with a nasty taste on his mouth. "That means that they didn't."

Sirius only minorly relaxed, but still he couldn't bring himself to sit back down. He started pacing the lengths of the wall again, in fact no one looked very comforted when they looked at Harry. He still looked too diminished for a boy his age, and hadn't spoken yay or nay to what either adult had said. If he hadn't been beaten, then they were all sure something had been done to him.

Remus made a noise remarkably close to how Sirius had sounded earlier, not that either one noticed. He was just beyond frustrated at everything, particularly himself. Harry should not have been raised by a man who would say something like that about the boy's parents! What had Dumbledore been thinking putting him there!

Hermione's pity for Harry having to deal with all of this did switch to confusion for now.

"That's not something you get to hear every day," Ron smirked, hoping those Dursleys would indeed say one more word now.

"It's alright Harry," Neville said kindly, seeing the boy's face now still looked a little too white and trying to help somehow. "I'm sure whatever questions you don't manage to ask Hagrid we can answer."

Ron instantly agreed, much to the pleasure of everyone else. They'd wanted to offer the same thing, but Harry really was responding best to those his age.

Harry's confusion managed to increase at such an explanation, thinking that Hagrid had just said both options weren't likely, but then what was the third? He decided he'd take Neville and Ron up on that offer late and see if they might know better.

Arthur sighed heavily as he shook his head, that spell had been a nightmare to deal with.

Harry was blinking slowly and steadily at everyone around the room, but only Dumbledore gave even the slightest impression that he may have some other idea, and Harry only guessed as much because he was the only one trying not to meet Harry's eyes right then, instead he looked to be in deep contemplation about something.

"The fact that it's commonplace, so your accidental magic wouldn't have kicked in every bleeding time it happened," Tonks hissed in outrage.

"It usually only works when something new or frightening is happening, occasionally one can pull it off if they're concentrating really hard, but like Tonks said, that doesn't seem the case for that instance," Charlie agreed with an ugly look in place.

"Magic doesn't automatically make you invulnerable," Charlie pointed out with a rueful rub at his leg where he'd recently had an injury.

"We'll have to disagree with you on that, Harry," Remus forced a chuckle to try and get rid of any lingering bad feelings. "You've most certainly displayed more than enough to prove otherwise."

Harry quickly gave him a winning smile back, he really wanted to try and stay on this man's good side today in hopes of trying to get a few more scraps of information about his dad out of him later, and besides, he really did agree now.

Harry nodded along with his own thoughts, this had already occurred to him as well, and while it didn't make the Dursleys' treatment of him feel any better, it was nice to finally have an explanation for it rather than just being a waste of space as they'd always claimed.

"Thank you Hagrid," Sirius sighed in relief, his own temper finally coming back down enough he stomped back to the group proper and retook his not really a seat.

Dumbledore couldn't help but chuckle slightly, feeling Hagrid may be a bit biased on that and thinking what Madame Maxime would have said to the contrary, not to mention any of the other numerous heads of schools.

Harry couldn't help a small smile of agreement with that, he was already enjoying that part.

"You're right," Remus sniffed, "you're not. In fact, you have no bleeding say in the matter whatsoever."

"And never will again," Arthur agreed.

Both threw an obvious look at Dumbledore, who sighed and tried not to meet anyone's eyes.

Dumbledore couldn't help but be warmed at such defense from Hagrid, though he did wish it had been taken out on the man and not the child.

Not one person in the room could stop themselves laughing heartily at this, it was too much poetic justice.

While Harry laughed along though, he was far more interested in watching Sirius, who was genuinely chuckling as well. He hardly seemed to realize he was doing it, the expression just couldn't quite meet his eyes, but he was indeed letting out little starts and stops of spurting giggles like his body had forgotten how to and this was the first time he'd been given the chance.

He was the first to stop, not even Remus seemed to have noticed that he'd been doing so, and by the time Neville had calmed down, his face had settled back into a fairly neutral expression.

"Actually, you should have done it much sooner," Tonks corrected, she was the last person to have stopped her laughter and was still giggling along as Neville read.

Ron started snickering all over again, and Harry's grin stretched just that little bit wider in agreement.

"How come?" Hermione and Harry blurted out at the same time in surprise.

"That is for Hagrid to tell," Dumbledore replied simply.

Again Harry and Hermione had to fight down the compulsion to ask for more details, but one look at Dumbledore showed they'd be getting the same answer so they sat in wait.

"Subtle change of subject," Charlie smiled sadly. He'd tried many times to get Hagrid to tell him what had happened, but the man had never shared.

Harry was certainly distracted enough from the topic of Hagrid to realize he'd be sleeping under something alive, but it still sounded far warmer and kinder than some raggedy old blanket, and with the fire still going at least Harry could expect some sleep before an adventure with Hagrid.