Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters in it. I salute JKRowling for her wonderful writing skills. This is a poor tribute to her in the form of a fanfiction.

Spread Your Wings

Chapter One: Leaving The Nest

By Ebona Nite

4-4-2007

A small, scrawny boy in oversized clothes glanced confusedly around the small alley, absently smoothing his messy black hair down over the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. It was a tiny, grubby alley with a trash can in one corner and grubby bricks. Certainly not Diagon Alley!

Harry Potter looked over at his companion, a large – one might say huge – man carrying a pink umbrella, who had moved over to the far wall and was muttering to himself as if trying to remember something. This was Rubeus Hagrid, groundskeeper and Keeper of the Keys at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry had been picked up around midnight from his relatives and taken into London for school shopping after Hagrid had sent off an owl with a letter for the Hogwarts headmaster. But this didn't look like any sort of shopping center. He was beginning to wonder and the sanity of wizards in general. Or at least the lack of logic. Before Harry could ask Hagrid just what they were doing at the back of the pub called the Leaky Cauldron, Hagrid straightened up.

"Righ' I remember now! 'Ere we go… Three up… Two across… remember tha' now, 'Arry." The overlarge groundskeeper said, and tapped a brick with his umbrella.

The bricks rumbled and pulled themselves apart, sliding back to form an archway, and behind the wall –

Harry gaped. "Welcome 'Arry, to Diagon Alley!" Hagrid proclaimed with a grin, and ushered the small boy through.

The alley was crowded with people in all colors of robes, shops lined the narrow street, and Harry felt he couldn't take enough of it in. Luckily everyone there was too busy with their own shopping for a repeat performance of the ecstatic mob in the Leaky Cauldron, Harry thought vaguely as Hagrid led the way up steps of a tall white marble building proclaiming itself "Gringotts Wizarding Bank". Harry read the strange epitaph by the door, and wondered. "Hagrid, is that for real?"

"Wha'? Yeah – they got lots o' ways of keeping wizards' gold safe. Some vaults even got dragons!"

"There – there's really such things dragons?"

"Why sure there are! Lovely things, dragons. Wish I had one."

Harry privately wondered just why anyone would want one, but didn't say anything. It was Hagrid's dream, and it wasn't like Harry knew anything about the Wizarding World. Several minutes later Harry had learned that goblins ran the bank, that the carts seemed to him rather like a roller coaster – he enjoyed the ride, but Hagrid was already looking a bit green – and was desperately trying to remember wizarding currency.

Harry watched with curiosity as Hagrid picked up a small package from Vault 713 before staggering back to the cart. He nodded when Hagrid told him it was "best to forget" about their little side-trip, but committed it to memory anyway. Sometimes the smallest pieces of seemingly random knowledge could be of great use at a later date, Harry had learned. Of course, sometimes they were just small pieces of random knowledge. But often Harry found he enjoyed learning things anyway, through reading (when he could sneak to the school or public library without repercussions), listening to conversations and observing people. Harry had cultivated the art of being unnoticeable – a necessity around his cousin and Dudley's friends who liked to bully him, and so unnoticed he watched, and listened, and learned.

That's what threw him off the most here in the wizarding world. Here he was famous, and people kept recognizing him and wanting to shake his hand. Harry longed to shrink back in the shadows and not be noticed anymore. In his experience, attention was always bad for the health. He'd been hoping to be normal, to make some friends and not be the "freak" that everyone liked to bully. Now he was a "freak" of a different kind – a famous one. It was altogether unnerving.

Later, as Hagrid took Harry back to Surrey, the reluctant Boy-Who-Lived began cataloging all the things he learned that day. Magic was real, his parents had been killed by a dark wizard named Voldemort – or You-Know-Who, he must remember that – and he was famous for stopping the wizard even though he couldn't remember it and he had been only a year old. Owls were used for post – he'd have to name his snowy owl later. The Leaky Cauldron had rooms for rent as well as a pub, he'd seen people going up and down stairs, and a ledger book near the cash register. Goblins ran the bank – yet wizards treated them very rudely if the snatches of conversation he'd heard in Gringotts were any indicator; what was stopping the goblins from refusing the rude people service, or going on strike? I mean the goblins control all the money - lock the doors and everyone would go broke! It was just plain stupid to be rude to your bankers, even if you didn't like them.

He'd learned quite a few other things from observation as well as from asking a few choice questions. He made sure to remember one observation in particular: The Leaky Cauldron, entrance to Diagon Alley, was on Charring Cross Road in London. That would come in handy later, he was sure of it.

One thing Harry knew for certain, his "family" was not going to be happy with him coming back to Privet Drive. They wouldn't be happy to see his "freak" things and his poor owl would probably be considered vermin. Harry had seen the murderous look on Uncle Vernon's face as Hagrid took him away last night. He doubted he'd be welcome back "home".

He was right. Hagrid dropped him off, warned the cowering Dursley's to be nice and to get him to King's Cross Station on September 1st, and left with a cheery good-bye.

Harry gulped.

His uncle glared down at him and his things in the hallway, large face turning purple. "I'll not have it." He growled, "I'll not have anymore of your freakishness! We've fed you and clothed you, given you a place to sleep for ten years! TEN YEARS we've put up with you! NO MORE! I'll not have you contaminating Dudley and my home with any of your freakish filth! OUT! GET OUT!"

Vernon Dursley's small, green-eyed nephew quailed at his shouting, and grabbed his things. Then Harry took a shaky breath, and summoned up as much courage as he could. The plan that had been forming on the way back was returning to him now, some things had to be set in motion much sooner than he'd thought, rather than disappearing after the school year (since the Dursley's would never want him back after he'd actually begun to learn magic) he'd have to go now.

"U-uncle Vernon? Um, if, if you could give me a ride –"

"WHAT?! WHAT PART OF 'GET OUT' DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND BOY?"

"B-but an officer might see me with this trunk, and bring me back. S-so if you dropped me off in London…"

Vernon quieted down, and began chewing on the ends of his mustache, thinking it over. The Boy was right, he might be forced to come back unless Vernon left him far away.

"London you say?"

Harry nodded, hoping his luck would hold out. "Charring Cross Road, in London. I won't come back."

Vernon glared at him, and then nodded brusquely. "Alright, get in the car. Get your freak things in the trunk. And I better not see your freakish face ever again!"

And so with the glares of his Aunt Petunia and cousin Dudley burning into his back and his Uncle Vernon starting the car, Harry began dragging his things outside.

Author's End Notes: Okay, chapter one done! Sorry it's rather short, I didn't really want to go into detail on the Diagon Alley trip just yet.

9-15-2008 Edit Note: I lost my original notes after finishing this chapter. I finally came up with a new angle, though I'm sure I had been heading for a Slytherin!Harry plot, but you have to admit that is vastly overused. Anyway I added a couple small points to the chapter above, took out the authors note proclaiming what I'd do next chapter that obviously I didn't, and reissued this chapter. Not much differences though.