I do not own Harry Potter, if I did I'd be on a golf course somewhere not in school.

Our story begins in a very normal house in a very normal neighborhood. This house contained what appeared to most neighbors a normal family and on occasion a very abnormal boy. The house was 4 Privet Drive, the family was the Dursley's, and the boy was Harry Potter. Now on this fine day if you were to venture out behind that particular home in Surrey you would find a very normal sight, on this day Harry Potter was gardening.

"Another summer working as a house elf." A statement of wisdom that was mumbled by Harry to himself. It had been two weeks since arriving back from Hogwarts and everyday had been spent doing some chore even if that particular chore had served no purpose at the time. He had, in his gilded cell, mowed the Dursley's lawn a total of 7 times in two weeks. Suffice to say, Harry was not in a good mood, although the Dursley's had not mistreated him more than usual, there were many things for him to do and the least of which was not his summer homework from school. As this would be the start of his fifth year and that was the year of the tests known as OWL's, his homework load was not light. Of course, his main concern was the re-risen Dark Lord.

"Boy, get in here." Vernon Dursley, not the most pleasant of fellows, bellowed at his nephew. Harry's imposing and rather massive uncle stood glaring at his 'free-loader' nephew. It seemed that Harry had done something to aggravate his uncle, this was not unusual as it seemed that existing was Harry's main unforgivable sin.

"Coming Uncle Vernon." Harry Potter had learned long ago not to make his uncle wait, so he hurried into the house. He stopped to make sure no dirt would be tracked into the household as such things never ended well for him. Harry approached his uncle and took a stance reminiscent of a lowly officer of the Royal Navy standing in front of the Queen herself.

"Boy, we are going to my sister's for the week, you will be staying here." Vernon informed his nephew of the family vacation in a rather condescending tone. This too was not unusual as nearly every instance that Vernon Dursley ever deigned to speak to his nephew it was in a condescending tone.

"Yes Uncle Vernon." Harry was not going to ruin a week without the Dursley's.

"I have given you a list of chores, and there is food for a week. There will be no freakishness while we are gone is that understood?" This was a fairly nice arrangement, at least for Vernon. He would be away from his freakish nephew and all the other freaks and such that decided to impose themselves at his doorstep, meanwhile his nephew would be too busy to do any of his tricks that would alert the neighbors.

"Yes Uncle Vernon." Harry still wasn't going to ruin his fortuitous week away from his relatives.

"Then get to it boy." These were the final words of wisdom before the Dursley's left their home, and their nephew. Harry himself had to refrain from jumping for joy as the vehicle headed down the street.

Harry took his list of chores and began to work. The Dursley's had given him a fairly lengthy list of things to do, but through diligence and the careful skipping of several items his relatives wouldn't notice anyway Harry managed to complete his chores with some time to spare. It happened to be the fifth day of Harry's solitude when he actually finished with the list of chores his uncle had given him.

Now as lazy as Harry sometimes was in school, he was not given to doing so while at the Dursley's because such things were given to have unattractive consequences. So Harry pulled out his school trunk using the handy knife Sirius had given him to do his homework for the summer. Harry began with his charms homework which after a little research in his book turned out to be fairly easy, then he moved onto Astronomy and then Herbology which were both rather easy assignments which asked only to parrot information from the relevant book. History of Magic was a subject Harry just didn't care about so that left Transfiguration and Potions as his last two assignments for the summer. After developing a slightly more than healthy disdain for Potions, Harry decided that transfiguration would be the first choice.

Transfiguration Summer Assignment

The student will explain Gamp's Fifth Principle Exception of Elemental Transfiguration, it will include both a comprehensive overview of the law as well as several examples of the principle in action, finally the student will conclude the essay with a theory of his or her own which describes why the principle exists. This theory may be a expansion or a combination of theories provided within the text. There is no length requirement for this essay; however, an essay less than eighteen inches of parchment will need to be of more than outstanding quality to merit a passing grade.

Professor Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress, Hogwarts

Harry let out a rather loud groan at the reading of this assignment, it was exactly the kinda of assignment both McGonagall and Hermione would love. Harry was not either of those people. He was the practical wizard, such a temperament had allowed him to survive this far into his life. In other words if he couldn't use it to escape Voldemort or whatever evil thing happened to be after him at the time Harry did not care. Unfortunately, he still had to do the assignment.

"I'm gonna need somewhere more comfortable to sit." Harry decided that a move to couch in the TV room was needed. Packing up all that he had laid out around him, Harry moved. Once resettled in his new location, it was unanimously decided by himself that in order to prevent his brain from becoming mush, the TV should be on to distract his mind when studying became too much. He quickly turned on the television and turned to a documentary so the program would not be so interesting as to distract him from his study.

Intermediate Transfiguration, pg 238

Gamp's Fifth Principle Exception of Elemental Transfiguration

It is impossible to transfigure any object into gold, unless the object was originally composed of gold. Similarly, it is impossible to transfigure an object made of gold into another object of base composition other than gold.

Harry did not know exactly how important that principle would come to be in the future. Regardless he set to work looking through the book attempting to find evidence of why the transfiguration to or from gold was impossible, in the text there were numerous entries of failed attempts with disasterous results when attempting to transfigure something either from or to gold. Barnaby the Unlucky ended up with bits of chamber pot embedded in his abdomen while trying to transfigure it into gold. Gabriel the Spotted was the unfortunate enough to become covered in pimples after he attempted to transfigure a golden egg, which he had stolen the day before and was attempting to hide from the Aurors who believed he was responsible.

After searching for about a half hour and finding numerous instances of failed attempts and quite a bit of conjecture at why each incident happened. The problem Harry discovered was each theory posed for an incident seemed at some points to disagree with previous theories. Harry was becoming rather frustrated. "I guess this is why we're supposed to come up with a theory." It was at that point the television decided to make it's own foray into the world of magic, or at least relative to the magical theory Harry was currently examining.

"All matter in the universe is similar, and the most basic parts of all matter are the same. Every piece of matter are made up of atoms and each of these atoms is made up of particles, and all atoms are made up of the same particles just in different number and orientation."

"What?" the thought that suddenly everything was the same was a very new thought to a fourteen almost fifteen year old boy who had left the Muggle world educationally at eleven years of age. He of course knew about atoms and elements but they were abstract ideas to him of which he did not know any theory behind. Now he knew just a small sliver of that theory and it contradicted everything his book had been telling him. The Muggles knew that everything was in it's most basic form the same, or different combinations of the same things. Of course this did not mean that magically every element was the same, but if the Muggles could describe each element as the sum of it's parts then why was gold magically any different that iron?

"If you could manipulate the particles themselves then it should be possible to transfigure any element into any other element, shouldn't you?" Harry was for the first time in his magical life, academically curious. The Dursley's had at a very early age decided that Harry was not as smart as their Dudders, and they had made sure that Harry both knew it and acted like it.

However, contrary to what many would call him, Harry was not stupid. He had acquired his parents intelligence, but he had never applied himself in the Wizarding World. He was famous and did not want to be and those to conflicting elements prompted him to do just well enough not to stand out among his peers. Harry Potter was content to be lost in the fray of thirty schoolmates.

After avidly watching the documentary, Harry decided to investigate further and immediately went to the computer the Dursley's had bought Dudley. Harry was sure that this computer had never been used for anything other than Doom, but that did not stop him. He pulled out the disks which came with the Hewlett Packard PC, and upon searching the stack he wandered upon a disc called Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia and promptly searched it for atoms, gold, and any other element which he could come up with. After several hours of searching and taking notes, in a notebook which he pilfered from Dudley's unused and in most cases unopened school supplies, he felt he was ready to write his essay.

Gamp's Fifth Principle Exception of Elemental Transfiguration, by Harry Potter

. . . There are many theories which explain why it is impossible to transfigure to gold and most of them have to do with something elementally different about gold than any other element. There is no real evidence for this theory except that there is no record of anyone having transfigured something from or to gold. Many people have tried and all recorded instances have failed, but all matter is made up of atoms, all atoms are made up of particles of which there are three kinds. Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons are the basis for every gas, liquid, and solid that exists and by manipulating the arrangement of these particles is should be possible to transfigure any element into any other element including gold.

Harry was nervous about how his essay would be received but decided that even if McGonagall gave the paper a T it was only one grade over the course of a year, and that it would be his OWL scores which mattered for the next year anyway. He wanted to test his theory but since he was not allowed to do magic out of school a fact illustrated quite dramatically when Dobby decided to levitate the pudding, he would have to wait until much later.

Later in the evening after completing his essay and eating, Harry returned to his room.

"Hedwig, still nothing from my friends?" It had been two weeks and Harry had not heard the slightest peep from any of his friends or his godfather. He was beginning to wonder whether they had decided that he was better off with no knowledge of anything. "Best to keep me ignorant apparently." Deciding to send several letters asking what was going on, he quickly wrote three letters. The first to Sirius who Harry felt was the best chance of actual information. The second letter he wrote to Hermione which he expected would return a letter about homework, and asking if he was alright. The last letter went to Ron which he knew would be returned with three sentences at least two of which mentioned Quidditch. He sighed as he sent Hedwig off to his friends. Afterward the Boy-Who-Lived lie down and slept dreaming of the third task of the Triwizard Tournament as he had each and every day since he had watched Cedric Diggory die, but this night he would also catch glimpses of something more.

It was a much darker atmosphere in the commons of Riddle Manor in Little Hangleton, the darkness dominated by a single snake-like figure. Tom Marvolo Riddle, known better as Lord Voldemort, was happy or at least as happy as he could be.

"Lucius, how does the plan move forward." The snake-like figure moved away from his throne toward his most trusted figure.

"We have found location, but are unable to get to it. The Order guards the doorway around the clock." Lucius Malfoy, father of Draco Malfoy and quite possibly the only person on the planet smarmier than Snape, at least in Harry's opinion, spoke with his head bowed.

"Very well, we will patient for now." The red eyes moved from his follower to look at the rest of his inner circle. It was true that not working in the open was an inconvenience, but the Ministry denying his return hindered Dumbledore and his Order much more than Riddle himself was hindered. So for now he would work in shadow, and remain a ghost in the minds of the wizards and witches about the countryside.

The situation in a location that couldn't be found except by those who knew where it was, was a bit more tense to say the least.

"I don't like keeping Harry in the dark, it isn't right, and it isn't fair that we ask of him what we do and then give him nothing in return" spoke Harry's godfather, and possibly the only person in the world who cared only for Harry without a thought to the Wizarding world. He did spend twelve years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, so it is possible that Sirius Black might have just been pissed at the Wizarding World.

"Sirius, he's a child, we don't ask anything of him. We are here to protect him as we should" returned the voice of one Molly Weasley.

"He isn't a child at least not like you are making him out to be. He faced Voldemort when he was eleven, and killed a basilisk a year later. He deserves to know" Sirius, always the stubborn one, had been unwilling to give an inch on this subject for the entirety of the Order's stay at his place of residence.

"Dumbledore said we weren't to worry him with the information we get, and that it was a matter of security that any information we have be kept in the strictest confidence" shot Dedalus Diggle one of the older members of the Order. In part he agreed that keeping Harry in the dark could be dangerous, but he trusted Dumbledore's judgement for now.

"Dumbledore isn't always right, I'm proof of that. Harry has been put in life threatening situations at least once every year since he started Hogwarts, it stands to reason that it will happen again this year. He cannot make the best decisions unless he has information, he is flying blind and eventually it's going to get him killed." Sirius put forth the best chance he had at convincing people that Harry should be told but he knew that it wasn't going to be enough, not yet anyway.

His statement fairly well ended that conversation since it was both true and also because no one wanted to come within ten feet of discussing Sirius's time in Azkaban. The second reason the conversation ended there was the arrival of Emmeline Vance with a familiar snowy owl.

Once in sight of Sirius the owl took flight and deftly landed on the shoulder of her master's godfather, and promptly bit his ear.

"Ow, so Harry is a bit annoyed with me?" Sirius asked the owl a question which in reality he already knew the answer to. He quickly took and read the small piece of parchment from the owl and as he suspected and Hedwig had already confirmed, Harry was annoyed.

Dear Sirius,

The Dursley's are treating me alright this year, they have mostly been giving me chores and then leaving me alone. In fact I seem to be alone in almost every sense of the word at the moment.

Is there some reason people seem to be ignoring me? I guess I can understand leaving me out of things, and not updating me on Voldemort's plans, since it isn't me he's after. Wait, it is me he's after. I guess since I'm not risking my life against him. No, I am the one risking my life against him so that one doesn't work either.

Maybe there isn't anything to know, but I think that if there was nothing to know then you would tell me that, so I don't think that one works either.

When I get out of my cage, I will want a few answers.

Harry Potter

Boy-Who-Lived, Defender-Of-Stones-Of-Immortality, Slayer-Of-Basilisks, Co-Champion of the Triwizard Tournament, Voldemort's #1 Target, and your Godson

P.S. Patience is not my best virtue.

Despite himself, Sirius winced. Harry was very, very annoyed. And it was only going to get worse.

AN: Alright that's the prologue. I just wanted to give a bit of background information on where we are right now in the story. It is very early in the summer, though I will skip quite a bit of time in the next couple chapters because I don't think you guys would appreciate a play by play on Harry's chores, nor do I want to give to much away about the plot. Obviously fifth year, and obviously the prophecy exists otherwise I'll be making a few changes to the actual plot line on OOTP.

This is not a HarryVector story they are just going to be the eventual main characters. I haven't decided on a pairing for Harry yet. Cho is unresolved so I will get to that. It will not be HarryGinny or HarryHermione. It will also not be slash.

Finally please do not comment on mistakes in Harry's theory of transfiguration or magic or something like that. His idea is not perfect, I'm telling you right now. He's a fourteen almost fifteen year old boy who has a theory, it will be wrong, but that doesn't mean it won't be more correct than the previous theory.