Plot Bunny:
Plot Bunny:
A/N: This was just a plot bunny that decided to run through my head at 4am one morning. I decided to run with it for a bit before I ran out of energy. However I will keep going with it should I receive a few reviews, in the positive to do so. Otherwise the bunny shall run out of reach and most likely disappear.
A/N 2: I have re-written this chapter, and have added as well as deleted selective things. Please Read, again.
Disclaimer: I own nothing other than the said bunny. All characters and else from the Harry Potter Universe belong solely to J.K Rowling. We all know the drill…
"Harry! Where's the soap?" Draco yelled from the bathroom of Harry's one bedroom apartment.
"In the cupboard, the same one where everything else is kept," Harry yelled back shaking his head and slowly pulling himself out of bed.
Every morning it was the same routine with Draco. He would wake up a couple of hours ahead of Harry and spend an entire hour or two in the shower whistling before shouting at Harry that he couldn't find some item or another, making sure never to say the same item two days in a row. His shouting was always successful in waking Harry up.
Harry knew that Draco woke him up on purpose so that he would get up and start breakfast and have the majority of it done before Draco left the bathroom and Harry had developed his own morning routine because of this.
He would stumbled around the bedroom which was covered with clothing that was scattered over every surface of the room, most belonging to Draco, looking for his slippers, which was never a simple feat, and after finding them he would head to the kitchen to begin his morning routine.
He would flick on the coffee pot, grab a cigarette from the pack lying on the dinning room table, and smoke his morning cigarette while waiting for Draco to get out of the bathroom. He used the time smoking to think over the day's errands. Sometimes Harry would just sit and reflect on things in life until his smoke was done, like his apartment for example.
The one bedroom apartment was not overly small but not big by any means of the imagination. The bedroom consisted of a double bed, a bedside table and a chest of drawers as well as a normal sized closet. The closet was full of Draco's clothing, or at least what clothing wasn't on the floor and the six drawers of the dresser with Harry's.
Straight across from the bedroom was a hall closet, and to the left of the bedroom was the small bathroom which consisted of a tub/shower, a very small cabinet with sink and a toilet.
Draco's favorite part of the bathroom, other than the shower was the muggle mirror that was above the sink. Draco had been surprised to find out that muggles used mirrors even though they couldn't talk and soon realized he preferred them to the wizarding ones. "Because they don't comment constantly about my hair needing to be cut" Draco had answered smartly when Harry had asked why one morning out of curiosity.
The living room was the biggest room in the apartment, about eight by eight feet, and it was open to the dinning room. It was furnished with a pull out sofa couch of a soft blue and a lazy boy chair in the unfortunate color of light pink, a coffee table and a very old TV set Harry had found one day in the trash close to his building as well as a couple of bookshelves.
The dinning room was only about six by six feet and had room only for a four chair dinning room table set.
The kitchen was open to the dinning room and living room and other than the bathroom and dinning room; it was the smallest room in the place. There was limited counter space and only enough room for one person to move around in.
After his cigarette he would pour both him and Draco a strong cup of coffee, sugared heavily and pull out whatever he needed for breakfast preparations.
Today Harry felt in the mood for his favorite. Eggs, bacon, sausages, toast and mash potatoes that he would fry with butter from the night before. After pulling out pans and the like, Harry moved smoothly from one cooking process to the next, and in no time had everything done. As he was putting the last of it on the table the bathroom door opened and a very happy looking Draco walked to the kitchen table.
"Yummy, breakfast's ready!" Draco said as he sat at the table pouring salt and pepper on everything.
"You make sound as if I starve you," Harry replied, sitting down across from Draco adding a huge amount of salt so his food looked more like a Christmas scene than food.
"You know that much salt isn't good for you, right?" Draco asked looking concerned. "You'll have a heart attack or something if you have that much every day".
"So you tell me every morning," Harry quipped. "But I'm still alive and kicking".
"You kick in your sleep, did you know that?"
"Nope" Harry replied, "Did you know that you do too?"
"I do not!" Draco exclaimed.
"Yes you do!" Harry retorted, "Don't argue, and eat!"
After Breakfast Draco left to grab money from Harry's Gringotts account so that they would be able to pick up some Groceries and odd and ends that they would need for the next couple of weeks before school started again.
Harry spent an hour cleaning up from Breakfast, and decided to sit and have another cigarette before attempting to tackle the bedroom. As Harry sat there looking at the apartment, he felt a sense of pride. The apartment was paid for up until next summer and it was well furnished. Other than it being messy, Harry had taken very good care of keeping up with it and for it being the first time of living on his own; he believed he had done a great job. This thought lead to how he had gotten to the point of living on his own to begin with.
Harry had moved from the Dursley's about a month after being forced to return to their place by Albus Dumbledore. He had, over the years, expressed to his Headmaster how much he hated having to return there every summer. Every year Dumbledore had returned Harry's request to be elsewhere with, "it's for the best" and had only explained fully as to why after the death of Sirius, Harry's godfather.
Knowing he was only protected from Voldemort as long as he was living with his Aunt Petunia, because of his mother sacrificing her life for his, gave Harry reason to do his unsurpassed best to stick it out at the Dursley's.
He had fallen into a great depression after just a couple of weeks from the lack of human contact, the enormous amounts of chores and abuse from the Dursley's, and no news from anyone in the wizarding world.
Harry believed that they owed him at least some news about Voldemort or the ability to talk to his friends during the summer, which Dumbledore had forbidden again, seeing as the Orders idea to confront the Dursley's about their treatment towards Harry had back fired tremendously on whom else but Harry.
His Uncle had worked himself in to a terrible rage the whole road trip home. So terrible that Dudley, who had never been hit by his father, had even been terrified of him. The moment they had gotten in the door with Harry only a few feet behind his Uncle he had received a blow to his face that sent him sprawled across the floor. It was soon followed by a few kicks and a vicious belt lashing.
Harry had stopped eating almost completely other than trying to force down food whenever his stomach would painfully remind him that he had not eaten for a long stretch of time. Some days he would sleep completely through to the next, and some he would not sleep at all.
Nevertheless, he had tried to live through the amount of time needed to be spent at the Dursley's, that was until his Uncle decided one night at dinner, while Harry had been trying to force down some food, to speak ill of Sirius and, with out needing to say, Harry had gone off like the ticking time bomb he was.
When one does not sleep or eat for a long period of time, even the smallest of things can set them off. Add to that the week off being outside under the sun from dust to dawn doing outrageous chore and the whipping he had received the night before to the worst of painful sunburn.
This had lead to a series of unfortunate events that had for the most part made Harry's ever so wonderful life that much more wonderful. His Uncle had literally kicked him to the curb that very night, his heavy trunk and Hedwig's cage in tow, with no where to go. He had been beaten badly and had little energy, so little he didn't care if death eaters showed up as long as they killed him and did it fast.
Harry had spend the better majority of that night come early morning wondering around from park bench to park bench blocks from each other trying to figure out where to go or what to do. He knew he couldn't just lye down or the authorities would think he was trouble and haul him off god knows where.
He had thought about contacting Mrs. Figg, but had decided against it after a long thought out process. He Knew that if hew was to contact Mrs. Figg, she would without a doubt contact Dumbledore, and Dumbledore would then figure out a way of returning him to the Dursley's.
Harry didn't want to return to the Dursley's that was a definite.
Harry had then thought about living with a friend and beside the Weasley's and Hermione, he didn't have any. He knew that either would go to Dumbledore directly or pressure him into trying to go back to the Dursley's. He could hear them in his head.
"It is for your own good, your mother's protection, blah, blah blah."
The only other option would be for him to get his own place, and have it warded as best as possible against unwanted visitors.
While Harry had wondered from bench to bench he had turned this idea over and over in his head. He had the funds, he was sure of that. He could probably get furniture too. If he had it properly warded, he hoped he could beat Dumbledore in a bout of wits to an end.
"So how to get started?"
That was where he got stuck.
He had no access to his Gringotts account as it was about four in the morning and even if he had, how does one get a place?
Harry had sat there for a while bouncing idea's around his head until he had a slightly developed plan.
He spend the remaining time on the bench reading one of his school books until the first running bus towards the Leaky Cauldron picked him up.
Quickly, he had paid using the few pound notes and pocket change that Mr. Weasley had given him at Kings Cross Station at the end of last year while Mad Eye and the gang of Order members had been confronting his Uncle. Mrs. and Mr. Weasley had stepped out of the conversation while his Uncle had been distracted by Moody's revolving eye and had passed Harry the money.
When Harry had tried to refuse the money, knowing that the Weasley's were not well off and needed all the funds available to them, Mr. Weasley has replied with "just in case." Harry had reluctantly agreed but not with out promising to give it back should he not use it.
Once the bus had come to a stop as close to the Leaky Cauldron as it would, Harry baggage and all hurried in and after a quick few words with the innkeeper Tom, Harry finally settled in for the night in the room he had previously settled in to back in his third year.