Chapter 1. Alchemy

Nr. 4 Privet drive in Little Whinging, Surrey was by all appearences a perfectly normal house with perfectly normal inhabitants. It like all the other houses on privet drive had well tended gardens with a hedge separating it from the neighbour's gardens and a driveway with a car parked in it.

However, one of the people living in nr. 4 was a little different from the rest of the inhabitants on the same street. Harry Potter, currently sleeping in the smallest bedroom, was a wizard.

Harry had returned the day before from his fifth. year at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry heavily burdened with emotional pain and guilt, and was currently having a nightmare.

In his nightmare Harry was forced to witness Wormtail killing Cedric with Voldemort's wand, then came Voldemorts resurrection using the bone of the father, unknowingly given, the flesh of the servant, willingly given and the blood of the enemy, forcibly taken. Then came the duel between himself and Voldemort and the priori incantatem, and again Cedric and his parents came out of Voldemort's wand.

"You killed me Harry!" said Cedric. "No, I didn't" exclaimed Harry, "It was Voldemort, I didn't...". "Cedric's right you know" his father interrupted him, "If it wasn't for you Cedric would be alive. If you had never been born Voldemort wouldn't have come after us, and your mother and I would still have been alive".

The priori incantatem ended and Harry fell to his knees sobbing. "Lies, all lies" he choked out.

"Do you understand now Harry?" Voldemort walked over to Harry, "Everything and everyone you come near you hurt". "Don't you believe me Harry?" Voldemort asked, his evil smile growing wider, "Perhaps we should see a few more examples".

Harry looked up as his and Voldemort's surroundings seemed to melt into obscure shapes and colours before solidifying and revealing the death chamber in the department of mysteries.

In the chamber were Sirius and Bellatrix Lestrange dueling with wands. Harry tried to move but found that he could not, and could only watch as Sirius was struck with the red light from his opponents wand and fell with his back arching through the veil.

Then out of the shadows stepped Ron, Ginny, Hermione, the rest of his friends, the DA and the members of the order of the phoenix.

"Why did you do it?" he didn't know who said it first but all the people there began saying it as well, over and over again, "Why did you do it? Why did you do it? Why did you do it?".

Harry couldn't take it anymore, he screamed, and woke up screaming, still hearing Voldemort's fading laugh.

He screamed for a full scond before realising he was in his room. He glanced over to his alarm clock and saw that it was only 5 AM, but he knew that he would not be able to sleep any more so he got out of bed and began pulling on his overly large Dudley castoffs.

He was only halfway dressed when a pair of angry footsteps sounded in the hallway and his door was slammed open revealing his uncle.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" uncle Vernon yelled angrily, "Waking us up by screaming at five in the morning. You'd better explain yourself this instant".

"I'm sorry uncle Vernon" Harry said, "I haid a bad dream, I'll try not to let it happen again".

"It'd better not" was uncle Vernon's reply as he went back to his and aunt Petunia's bedroom.

Harry pulled on his overly large sweatshirt and decided to begin working in the garden as it was one of his chores he didn't detest. After eating a small breakfast he set to work. Unfortunately it turned out that most of the gardening equipment was rusted to such a degree that it was beyond repair, so he decided to only do the weeding for now.

By the time he was finished with weeding the garden it was a quarter past nine and the Dursleys were beginning to wake.

Harry went inside, washed his hands and began making breakfast for his relatives. Shortly after he began putting the bacon and eggs on the plates aunt Petunia came down the stairs, shortly followed by Vernon and Dudley.

After the Dursleys had eaten breakfast Harry explained to his uncle Vernon that they would have to go to London to get some proper gardening tools, at which Dudley had exclaimed that he needed some things in London as well.

After getting the gardening tools uncle Vernon dropped dropped Harry off outside The Leaky Cauldron and told him that they'd pick him up in two hours after getting Dudley's things.

Entering The Leaky Cauldron Harry was met by the same pub interior he had encountered when Hagrid had taken him there the summer before his first year.

"Morning Tom" Harry offered to Tom the barman who only nodded in return. Harry then made his way to the entrance to Diagon Alley and tapped the bricks to open it.

The sight of the bricks disappearing and revealing the sight of Diagon Alley still amazed Harry even after five years in the wizarding world, so much in fact that as he entered he didn't notice the pink haired witch who tripped until they collided and fell over with her on top of him.

"Wotcher Harry" the pink haired witch offered.

"Tonks" Harry groaned out when he figured out who it was on top of him, "Not that I don't mind you lying there, but if the press saw this they would have a field day".

Tonks blushed beet red before composing herself and getting off Harry.

"So Harry, what are you doing in Diagon Alley?" Tonks asked.

"Uncle Vernon dropped me off here" Harry answered truthfully, "We got some gardening tools, but Dudley said he needed some things, so I got stuck here for two hours. I figure I might as well get some new clothes and some books to read over summer".

"Good for you" Tonks exclaimed, "If anyone needs some new clothes it's you, and I volunteer to be your fashion consultant".

"Well then" Harry said and offered his hand in a gentlemanly fashion, "Shall we?"

Tonks took his hand and Harry led way to Gringotts. At Gringotts they were escorted by a goblin who introduced himself as Grappleclaw down to Harry's vault.

Tonks was clearly amazed at the sight of the amount of money in Harry's vault, but kept silent at the embarrased look on Harry's face, while Harry shuffled several Galleons into a small leather pouch.

The next stop was Madam Malkin's where Harry explained that he needed some clothes he could use int both the wizarding and muggle worlds. As soon as he had explained madam Malkin told harry to have a seat while she found some clothes that would work and rushed off, shortly followed by Tonks. When they returned they dropped a pile of clothes into Harry's hands and ushered him into a stall.

Harry quickly went through the pile and removed various articles of clothing that were completeley unacceptable, among others a sweater with a lot of pink circles on it.

When he was finished removing the unacceptable clothes he was left with a few pair of pants some shirts and a few sweaters.

After trying on the clothes and finding that they all fit Harry put on a pair of black pants and a brown leather belt, a black t-shirt and a black overshirt with white at the sleeves and other edges that zipped up with a zipper.

As he was looking in the mirror he noticed a pair of short white gloves lying under the chair where he had put the pile of clothes. On a whim he picked them up an put them on.

With a start he realized that all that was needed to complete the outfit was some new shoes.

"Hey Harry" Tonks voice called from the outside, "Try these on". A pair of black combat boots were slid under the curtain.

Harry smiled, Tonks was already one step ahead of him.

He removed his old worn out sneakers and put on the boots, they perfected the look.

Grabbing the other clothes he wanted he exited his stall and with a nod of acceptance from Tonks quickly purchased his new clothes.

After exiting Madam Malkins Harry and Tonks made their way to Flourish and Blotts because Harry needed some parchment and wanted to look up some new spells.

Flourish and Blotts unlike Madam Malkin's was full of people and this made Harry dread the expected reaction.

"Harry Potter" was shouted out almost as soon as he stepped through the door and Harry was soon surrounded by people shaking his hand and telling him how proud they were to meet him.

"Excuse me" a voice said timidly behind him. Harry turned around to be confronted by a short elderly witch holding a picture and a quill.

"Do you think you could sign this please?" the witch asked and handed him the picture and the quill.

Harry took one look at the picture and realized that it was the picture taken of him and Lockhart in the summer before his second year, he also noticed that it was already signed by Lockhart.

"I'll be glad to sign it" Harry said and took the picture and quill, "Who should I make it out to?"

"Ethel" the witch answered. Harry only smiled and signed the picture before handing both picture and the quill back to the witch.

"Thank you so much, you've made my day" Ethel said, breaking into a wide and honest smile.

After waving goodbye to Ethel there were only a few more witches and wizards who wanted to meet Harry and after meeting them and shaking hands Harry was free to browse the books in the store.

Harry picked up several advanced books on defence against the dark arts and charms, he also got a potions book that explained how ingredients reacted together as this was something he found the textbooks in potions lacking in.

As he was looking through the stacks of books in the back, while Tonks was talking to a fellow auror, he found leather bound book with a strange looking symbol on the front marked Human Transmutation.

Opening the book revealed it to be a complex set of equations and theory about some strange symbols, similar to the one on the front of the book, that would be needed to perform human transmutation.

Harry had never been a top student like Hermione, but he was quite talented in both math and the sciences due to some of uncle Vernon's old school books that had been in his cupboard.

The equations didn't look like magical equations to Harry, indeed they looked more like like they were describing molecular changes to from their original states into something else, however they were too advanced for Harry to make much more sense out of than that.

Harry's curiosity had been awoken and he decided he would need some less advanced books on the subject in order to figure out what the book was about in more detail, so he began looking for more books on the subject.

Fifteen minutes later he had searched through a lot of stacks and found only two other books on the subject, which he had discovered was called Alchemy and was not magical at all but was instead more closely linked to the muggle sciences. He had also discovered that the strange symbols were called Transmutation Circles and were the key to alchemy.

Harry looked at his watch and decided to purchase the books he had found before going to find a wizarding optician.

"Hey Harry" Tonks called, "You ready to go yet?"

"Yeah" Harry answered, "I just have to pay first".

Harry payed for his books and purchased several rolls of parchment before he and Tonks left the bookstore.

"Tonks, do you know if there are any wizarding opticians in Diagon Alley?" Harry asked her as they left Flourish and Blotts.

"Yeah, there's one over near the entrance to Nocturn Alley" Tonks answered, "Why do you ask? Anything wrong with your glasses?"

"I don't know" Harry said, " I think my perscription might have changed though".

"Well come on then" Tonks said as she changed direction, "I'll take you there".

The optician's store was a small unremarkable building almost right next to the entrance to Nocturn Alley, in fact it was so unremarkable that if Tonks hadn't led him there Harry would never even have noticed it.

The inside of the store was filled with all sorts of glasses, spectacles and glass lenses that looked like they were parts of a telescope or a pair of binoculars.

"May I help you?" a wizard who appeared to be in his twenties asked from behind the counter.

"Yes" Tonks aswered before Harry had a chance to say anything, "My friend here thinks his perscription may have changed".

"Please follow me then" He said and led Harry and Tonks into a room on the back, "Please, have a seat".

Harry did as he asked and sat in the chair in the middle of the room.

The wizard cast a few diagnostic charms and told Harry that his perscription had indeed changed, he also told Harry that his sight was rapidly decaying and that he would need a potion to fix it, the potion would also give him perfect eyesight.

Unfortunately the ingredients for this potion were expensive and there were only two potions masters capable of making this potion, this meant that the potion would cost him at least five hundred Galleons.

Fortunately for Harry money was not an issue. "I'll take it" he said.

"If you'd be willing to wait here for a little while, I will get a goblin so that we may arrange the monetary issues" the optician said and left the room.

Within a few minutes the optician returned followed by an official looking goblin.

After inspecting their keys and verifying that they were indeed who they claimed to be the goblin pulled out a document in triplicate.

The document was basically a legal document that stated that upon delivery of the potion the optician could deliver the bill to Gringotts and the correct amount of money would be withdrawn from Harry's vault and then given to the optician.

Harry, the optician and the goblin signed all of the documents. The goblin then handed one of the documents to Harry and one to the optician before bowing to them both and leaving.

The optician then informed Harry that the potion would be delivered to his residence in aproximately ten days.

After promising that he would be careful Harry and Tonks split up and Harry began making his way to The Leaky Cauldron, meanwhile the optician began writing a letter to one Severus Snape about the brewing of one eyesight correction potion.

After making his way to The Leaky Cauldron without any incidents he found uncle Vernon and Dudley outside, waiting in the car.

Harry put his stuff in the trunk and got in the back of the car.

The ride home was generally uneventful except for Dudley sneaking jealous glances at Harry's new clothes.

When they got home the task of carrying the bags fell to Harry and he was forced to carry Dudley's heavy bags up to Dudley's room.

After having put all of the bags in their places Harry got out the new gardening tools and began trimming the rose bushes and doing all the other little things in the garden that needed doing.

By the time he had finished in the garden it was time for supper, so he headed inside, washed his hands, and sat down at the table.

After supper he headed up to his room only to find several letters sitting on his bed. going through them he realised a lot of them were from members of the DA thanking him for all the tutoring he had done with them.

The rest however were fan letters from various people claiming that they had always believed and supported him. Harry quickly chucked the latter of the letters in the bin.

After reading the letters from the members of the DA Harry went through the stuff he had bought in Diagon Alley and found the books on Alchemy.

Grabbing the book titled "an Introduction to Alchemy" he lay down on his bed and began reading.

When the sun rose the next day Harry was still reading the book.