A/N:

For those of you receiving this new story and thus a new chapter and having to look up the fact that I updated in years, I hope you think this might have been worth it. When I stopped writing I was just leaving high school and a few years in college taught me just how juvenile my writing was, so I can say with an arrogant certainty will be much better than any that I've written before. Why is that? Because I shelved my rebellious proud and made a fucking outline. It works.

In specific to this story, I will be presenting this from 3rd person, but the entire perspective will center only on Harry. You'll see what this means shortly if you don't get it now.

Don't know if chapters will be longer or shorter than this. But they will be written, and that should be all that matters.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Only time I'll say this.

Harry Potter watched with amazement as the brick wall in front of him seemed to fold in on itself. It was all the more amazing when his eyes returned to the form of his guide for the day, an extremely short, slightly pudgy old man, who'd introduced himself as "Filius Flitwick, Charms Master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry". He had seemed most displeased with the Dursleys for my not understanding a single word of his gallant entry. Even though he was short in stature, his future professor could seem quite intimidating when he was angry. It was easy to see why. Aside from being one of the greatest duelists in the world, whatever that meant, the man also had the most intimidating, yet regal hair on anyone. He seemed to be bald on the top of his head, but he had a wild mane of white hair extending from each side of his head. Impossibly each mane seemed to concentrate itself into his sideburns which then proceeded to become his bushy mustache. Harry didn't know if he would ever get used to confronting that every day.

"What do you think, Mr. Potter?" His professor's question tore him back to the present. Harry looked down to his professor to see him wearing a wide smile under that ridiculous mustache and with a knowing glint in his eyes. With a look back at the wall, or what was left of it, he smiled, one of the few real smiles he had had in years. It felt nice, to be able to smile like this. Harry made a vow to himself to stop pretending. He was no longer at the Dursley's. He was free to be whoever he wanted. "Well, let's head on in then shall we? First stop will be Gringott's." With that the man set off, his short legs somehow able to make Harry walk rather quickly to keep up with him. With a snort, Harry wondered just how far this Gringott's place was. Hell, What is it, for starters.

While the slightly chilling warning on the front of the building – Gringott's was apparently the bank – had made him pause for a moment, the ornateness of the interior was only outweighed by its vastness. Flitwick winked over at him and they proceeded to a teller. The more time I spend with him, the more I like him.

As they came up to the counter, the teller snarled, "What can I do for you today?" Mentally taken aback by the abrupt greeting, Harry really took in the teller's appearance. He – was it a he? – had an odd shaped head with the longest, most awkward nose Harry had ever seen. His beady eyes were hidden behind a small pair of glasses and entirely shaded by the massive brow of the creature. He had wisps of hair stringing out of his temples and as he placed his hand out for the key that Flitwick wasgiving him, Harry noticed that the creature's hand was long and thin, with slightly yellow, slightly sharpened nails and what looked to be small splotches covering the skin sporadically. So this is a goblin. Harry hid a shudder. Flitwick nodded slightly at the key in the goblin's hand and sayed, "We'll only be going down to his trust vault since he can't access his other one."

Harry perked up at that and turned to the goblin, his demeanor demanding, "I have a vault?" His gaze turned to Flitwick. "Trust vault? Wait, you said other vault. I have two vaults?" His eyes widened slightly in shock before he brought himself together. He smirked for a moment before turning back to the goblin, "I want to go to the trust vault first and then the other one."

The goblin nodded once and yelled over his shoulder, "Griphook!" Griphook appeared shortly. "You will take Mr. Potter to his trust vault and then to the Potter family vault. " Griphook bowed his head slightly and gestured for the two of them to follow him.

After a frightening yet exhilarating cart ride – they seemed to use a gigantic rail system Harry had read about in mines to get around – the group arrived outside his trust vault. When the massive door was opened, Harry gaped shamelessly. He had never seen so much gold, never thought so much could exist. He unconsciously walked forward and gazed around. The goblin's monotonous voice cut in, "The trust vault is constantly and instantaneously refilled from the main family vault if at any time the vault's level drops below 50,000 galleons."

Harry almost goggled at the number. "Wait, what's a galleon?"

His answer came from the professor standing to his other side. "those coins in there are galleons. Those are the form of currency with the most value. The next level are sickles; those are silver. And then comes the bronze knut. There are 17 sickles in a galleon and and 29 knuts in a sickle."

"But they aren't actually gold, silver, and bronze are they?" At the goblin's grunt of affirmation, Harry mind was figuratively blown. Then he frowned. "It would be nice though if I could use some of this money in the muggle world too. I can't exacly pay for things with gold."

The goblin next to him sighed, he'd obviously heard this question before, and said, "We provide conversion fees to and from Great British Pounds free of charge. The conversion rate is 1 galleon to 5 GBP"

While he nodded to the goblin in thanks, on the inside his mind was furiously trying to think of the value for gold and silver if sold in the muggle world. He remembered what he came down here for and grabbed one of the bottomless bags – magic was a wonderful thing – hanging on the wall inside the vault and shoved a large number of large handfuls – It seemed like there was plenty, so he might as well – into the bag and turned to leave.

The ride to the Potter vault was just as exhilarating and Harry could have sworn he saw a dragon. One of his childhood fantasies had just come true – It was an unusual feeling. When this door was opened, Harry once again had to gape. As if that vault wasn't big enough, this one seemed to be at least five times as big. Where his trust vault had hills of gold, this vault had mountains. There was one small pile of what Harry assumed were 16 sickles and another with 28 knuts.

There were also piles upon piles of gems and cases full of jewelry and walls – entire walls – of books. There were also a few weapons here and there, but they all looked ceremonial to him. He took a step forward towards a book-wall when he heard his professor cough lately, "As much as I'm sure you'd love to spend a week inside here and indeed it might take that long to do so much as an inventory, we do have a relatively tight schedule to keep."

"Oh, yeah, of course, Professor." Harry ducked his head a bit in embarrassment0 as he followed his professor back to the cart. Upon returning to the atrium, Griphook pointed them in the direction of the currency conversion section. Converting his gold was an easy thing and so they quickly found themselves heading back up the street – And why was it named Diagon Alley anyway?

They stood on the steps looking over the street for a moment before Flitwick turned to him and said, "Well the items on your school list are all over so let's just start to the left and circles around." Harry nodded his assent and they made their way to Madame Malkin's Robes for all Occasions. Before they got too close, however, Flitwick spoke up somewhat nervously, "I have to admit Harry, it won't be an exciting thing waiting in there for you to be done."

Harry raised an eyebrow, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. He flicked his eyes to the store next door, Flourish and Blotts and noticed that it was a bookstore. "I understand, Professor. Trust me, I'd rather not have to bear it myself." They both chuckled. "Why don't I meet you in the bookstore when I'm done?"

flitwick practically jumped up he was so happy. "That would be fantastic! It's like you read my mind!" With that he quickly shuffled off, mumbling something about warding and enchanting and something else Harry couldn't quite catch. Shaking his head in amusement, Harry opened the door to the robe shop.

Shortly after the ding created by the door opening, a homely witch with bright smile shuffled over. "Hogwarts, dear? Got the lot here – another young man being fitted up just now, in fact." As they approached the back of the store, Harry caught sight of the boy already being fitted. He was pale with a small, pointy nose and had a very light shade of blond hair which was slicked back. Harry thought that the boy looked very much like a ferret.

He stepped up onto the second platform and the boy greeted him, "Hello. Hogwarts too?"

Harry, remembering the promise he'd made himself upon entering the alley smiled and said, "Yeah, I'm Harry Potter." The boy's eyes slightly widened and Madame Malkin gasped softly while the witch pinning the other boy's robes dropped her needle. Inwardly he frowned. Flitwick had told him of his fame. He'd also told him of its origin. It was a grisly tale and it made Harry quite resentful. Seeing these reactions, harry came to the sudden realization that he had just entered a world where everybody knew his name. It was a distinctly different change. The Harry that he was would have been uncomfortable in such a situation, so Harry resolved himself to try to step into this role that was being forced on him.

The blond boy quickly got himself together. "Draco Malfoy. Sorry about that, I just didn't expect to be meeting you." Draco shot him a slight smile before glaring down at the girl at his feet. "Ow! You poked me!"

Before Harry could catch himself, he laughed. Draco turned to him, surprise and indignation on his face. He opened his mouth to berate Harry, but seeing the mischievious look in Harry's eyes, he closed his mouth and smiled.

A short time later, Draco's robes were ready and he hopped down from the platform. He smiled up at Harry and said, "It was nice meeting you. Would it be alright if I owled you so we can keep in touch?"

At Harry's look of confusion, he looked down and sneered, "Right. Forgot about the muggles." Harry found himself agreeing with Draco's opinion. "It's how people stay connected. Write out the letter, parchment and quill of course, and tie it the owl's leg and tell it where to go and off it goes."

Harry smiled at such a cool way of talking to people. "Yeah sure that'd be great. I don't have an owl though, of course, so you'd have to write to me first."

Draco nodded and waved farewell, "Will do, Potter." Harry watched him meet up with a blonde woman who could only be his mother even though she looked rather young all things considered. For that matter, now that he thought about it, most of the women he'd seen who looked distinctly like elderly women could be counted on one hand.

After Harry had paid for his robes – he had gotten more than just the school robes of course – he headed next door to the bookshelf and started meandering the shelves. He finally ran into his professor, both laughing at the similarly large pile of books in the other's arms.

Flitwick took one look at the tomes in his arms and shook his head saying, "Those are no good. Come along. I'll show you the good ones." They first proceeded to the section that the store had dedicated to enchanting. "It'll be quite some time until you'll actually be able to do any sort of enchanting; took me years to get started. But we'll get you a couple good foundational books. They'll also help with helping you understand some basic Charms theory." Their next section was a smaller section on household charms. Having been forced to do all the chores by his aunt and uncle, he immediately set out to see how he could use magic to help with that. "Everyone forgets how many everyday tasks can be accomplished with a simple wave of a wand. Here's three good ones. With this section, you have to be careful to make sure you not buying some hopped up advertisement." harry nodded in understanding and they moved off to the elemental section, which was much, much smaller than the last two sections. "A very overlooked branch of magic. Not too much you can do with it unless you're born with a special gift for it. Here's a book that goes over the beginner steps."

He looked at the other books that Harry had grabbed while browsing on his own earlier. "Don't get involved with rituals until you've had quite a few years of schooling. None of the books they'd have in this store would have any real content anyway." Harry made a mental note to look up the reason for this. "Training your mind to train your magic: Make your magic easy. Again, you won't find much content on this sort of thing here. I have a couple books myself that I'd be willing to loan you if you'd like." Harry immediately smiled and nodding. "Let's look these over again. Yes, yes, yes. Alright let's head up front and check out."

Harry was suddenly very sure that this delightful little man would most likely be his favorite professor. He couldn't be sure of course, having never met any of the others, but they would have quite a fair amount of ground to make up.

Their next stop was the Apothecary, a disgusting little swamp-store, that both professor and student were glad to be done quickly. They stopped in at the Leaky Cauldron for lunch and Harry, feeling like being luxurious, ordered a big steak – he of course couldn't finish it. After a stop by the Cauldron, they finally arrived at Ollivander's, the resident wand shop, exceptional if he was to believe what he'd been told.

It was quite a while later when Harry emerged with his wand: Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches.

He could still feel the stick of wood in his hand pulsing in time with his heartbeat. He was so absorbed in thinking about his wand that he didn't notice how dark it had gotten. From beside him he heard, "Oh dear, it's quite a bit later than I thought it would be when we'd be done. Let's grab some dinner at the Cauldron and then if you'd like to, we can see about renting you a room for the night." While this was certainly a sentence, his professor sent a questioning glance his way and he smiled and nodded.

After another scrumptious meal, Harry stumbled up to the room that the bartender Tom had given him the key for. He barely got out of his jeans before he passed out on the fluffy bed. While he slept, the wizarding world pulsed around him, its subtle lullaby more than enough to pull him into a deep sleep.

Special Thanks to Die grimmig Maher, who somehow convinced me to let him beta-read this for me. On another note, due to this position, his criticism is really the only critism that I'm going to immediately consider.

Review. Or not. Whatever.