This was supposed to be an uneventful Tuesday evening at the Dursleys. Nothing funny about it- of course, there was nothing 'funny' about the Dursleys.

The Dursleys kept to 'their business' and their nephew whom they harbored a strong dislike for, kept to 'his business'.

The said nephew, Harry Potter, was weeding the raggedy garden that Petunia Dursley was so proud of.

A dark expression passed over his face as he tried to come to terms that Sirius Black- his godfather- had passed on...

And it was all my fault, he thought bitterly as he yanked at a particularly stubborn weed. Aunt Petunia had put him to work right when he came home, probably hoping that if he was busy, he wouldn't make any trouble with his magic.

The department of mysteries had been pushed to the back of his mind, his guilt driving him away from writing his friends. I almost got them killed...

Well, he thought bitterly, happy birthday to me!

He had received packages and rather careful letters from worried friends, but they remained unopened until he had spare time after his rather silly list of pointless chores that Aunt Petunia had made to keep him very busy all day long. The list had contained 30 rather persnickety items that he had to complete before her beady eyes judged his work.

"Boy!" yelled the muffled voice of Uncle Vernon, "Get in here."

Harry straightened up, stretching out his sore muscles before trudging into the ridiculously clean house (courtesy of Harry).

"You're filthy," snapped Aunt Petunia, who was at the Kitchen table propping up some wilted flowers in a vase, "Go wash yourself before getting freaky magic into my kitchen."

Harry would've loved to point out that most of their meals were cooked by him, and that it was really his kitchen, but held his tongue and strode upstairs, past the television that Dudley and Uncle Vernon were glued to.

A strange feeling of caustrophobia came over him like a tidal wave. He grasped the rail firmly with his calloused hand. He shouldn't have felt this way, he speculated later, given that he had lived in a small cupboard for ten years of his life.

Suddenly a sharp pain overtook him; he could feel the thrum of his magic trembling under the weight of a new pain, not the same unbearable attack as a cruciatus, but- darker. More- snakelike or poisonous.

He closed his eyes against this darker thing. Was he being attacked? How could Death Eaters have gotten into the Dursley's home with all of the wards protecting it...

Salazar, I have found your rightful heir....may you awaken once more... the raspy but strong voice slid past his ear in a cloud of deep and ancient voices.

Suddenly memories were flowing through his mind, and he collapsed, body shifting like a twisted Metamorphagus... he could here the vague scream of Aunt Petunia, and he figured that it must be bad to cause her to panic so.

Memories, of him, or no- Salazar, flowed through his veins- he saw all of it- he could feel the excitement deep in his bones as they built the school, the anger at Godric, the proud magic flowing into Hogwarts, Salazar's miserable home life, Rowena with her sharp brown eyes, Godric laughing hysterically at something he had said, and Helga-

The kindly red-head girl, saying, "Hogwarts shall know."

That was the last thing he saw before everything went black.

*I love comments/reviews...constructive criticism welcome!