"Harry! Harry Potter!"
"Look over here, sir. A photo for the Daily Prophet?"
"No sir, the Wizarding Times! The Final Battle, an interview? Please sir-"
Harry walked by strangely detached from it all. He raised a hand occasionally to wave off the swarms of reporters and made his way through the crowd.
It had been only a few months since the battle which had ended it all. Harry wanted nothing more than to forget it all and start a new life but he couldn't, not when everyone in the world wanted to know, claimed it as their right to know...
He felt dazed by the flashing lights of the cameras. The first time this had happened, he'd ended up screaming at the reporters, nearly breaking down, but Ginny, Hermione and Ron had managed to haul him out of the mess undamaged.
Now he no longer had the strength to fend them off.
He walked quickly down the street keeping his head down. This was the last time he'd walk anywhere. He sighed shaking his head. Floo powder was quicker, not to mention reporter free. After a while the reporters finally seemed to get the message and little by little they left him, until 20 minutes later he was alone.
Alone. He sighed again, his breath an icy cloud in front of him. He wanted to be away from the reporters, away from everyone. He wanted space and time to just lie in a bed and stare at cracks in the ceiling thinking about all he had lost. Hermione had been worried about him because so far he hadn't shed a single tear. She thought it might be grief, a deep hole which could not be repaired.
Naturally being Hermione, she'd started borrowing books on psychiatry from the library pretending to be an eager Muggle student. He'd overheard her whole conversation with Ron about it.
He had been alone and distant for months.
He knew he should change that, there were people who depended on him. That was why he was headed towards number 93, Acacia Close.
Harry spotted a group of witches around the corner of the street. They recognised him immediately even though he was wearing Muggle clothing (an extra disguise). He groaned as they rushed towards him wearing dazzling smiles and straightening out their clothes, searching their pockets for quills.
He reckoned it was about as rude as slapping their faces, but he couldn't take this anymore.
Just as they reached him, he turned on his heel and apparated.
He gulped for air and pulled his coat closer around him.
He had stopped in front of a small house and stared. It was everything he had wanted as a little boy. A messy front garden to play on rather than to keep immaculately clean, a large room to himself and most of all, someone who loved him, someone who didn't think he was a waste of space.
The little boy had that all right here.
And he was going to get more. Harry was determined of that.
But he was as nervous as he was determined so he swallowed hard as he knocked on the door.