By the time Monday morning rolled around, looking far too cheerful for Harry's taste, Harry was ready – if not precisely willing – to return to Privet Drive. He waited until ten o'clock to post his letters, and managed to convince himself it was because he was doing Martha a favour, before resolutely entering muggle London and catching a taxi.

Alighting close by to the children's park near Magnolia Crescent, Harry stood in the sunshine while the taxi drove off.

Distant sounds of traffic filtered through to this peaceful corner of the world, and the shapeless shadows of clouds chased each other over the playground. Trees in the distance rustled familiarly. Harry relaxed.

He'd spent hours in this place over the years. Avoiding Dudley, escaping Ripper, sulking about Ron and Hermione not sending him letters…

He and Dudley had been attacked by Dementors close to here, once. Just by that little alleyway over on the left.

It was close enough to the Dursley's house without actually being the Dursley's house, and he rather thought it was the perfect spot for his experiment.

He looked around. There were no children playing in the park at the moment, and no joggers or dog-walkers at this time of morning either. Briskly, Harry dragged his trunk over behind the metal slide, and crouched down behind it, wand out.

"Wingardium Leviosa," Harry whispered quietly, and watched in satisfaction as a little pebble nearby gently hovered off the ground, eventually rising to eye-level, where it paused in the air.

He let the spell fall.

He waited.

Twenty minutes later, nothing had happened. No owls swooped down from the sky. No sternly worded missives from the Ministry. No Howlers. Nothing.

Harry turned the pebble into a flower pot, for the heck of it. Then he conjured a geranium to put in it. It was pink.

An hour went by, and still nothing had come.

Harry let out a breath that he hadn't known he was holding. He had succeeded in that total gamble he had made ten months ago. The Trace must attach to the wand somehow, and since he hadn't taken it on the Express, he was clean. He was completely free from surveillance. It looked like his plans for the holiday were going to succeed. And now he knew that was the case…

Now nobody was tracking which spells he used with his wand…

Harry quickly pulled out his father's Invisibility Cloak and threw it over his head. His trunk faded into invisibility too, and Harry strode off.

A few minutes later he was peering into the front windows, trying to see where Aunt Petunia might be. The distant sound of a vacuum cleaner was whining from somewhere upstairs.

Harry quickly snuck around the house, to the back door, which he quietly opened with a murmured, "Alohomora".

Nobody noticed, not even the neighbours in number six, as he crept silently inside and snuck into his cupboard and pulled it closed behind him.

Hearing the rumbling whistle of Aunt Petunia's vacuum uninterrupted upstairs and the sound of explosions coming from the living room telly, Harry assumed that his relatives were too busy to notice the door to the cupboard under the stairs open and close on an invisible housemate. The door closed behind him with the barest of creaks.

Once inside, he straightened a little and surveyed the space. A couple of pairs of shoes, two umbrellas, and some cleaning products had found their way into the cupboard while Harry was gone. He moved them neatly onto one of the empty shelves, and then quickly and silently cast a few spells on the cupboard itself. Petunia and Vernon and Dudley would forget that his little space existed until Harry abandoned again it in a month or so.

Satisfied, Harry then pushed his trunk over into what had become its own, personal corner and, removing his Invisibility Cloak, crept down inside.

He had priorities, Harry told himself firmly, the last remnants of his summer plans being pushed out of his mind. No zoo, no beaches, no holiday day trips. He sat in the chair at his desk and looked grimly once more at the exam transcripts from school. Including his grades for theory, Harry figured he was generally sitting around the 85th Percentile for his year in Hogwarts.

That was pretty bad, considering how well his practicals had gone. He supposed it all averaged out, as Hermione had said.

He slumped forward, holding his head in his hands as he flipped through the marker's comments.

Missing some obvious comparisons, his Charms marker told him. It didn't seem like Flitwick; perhaps an apprentice had marked it. Some students stayed on after seventh year, Harry knew, to pursue further study in specific fields. He'd thought Flitwick had a masters student this year. They had done the marking pretty well, Harry thought. The notes continued: Make sure you understand which family the charm belongs to in order to eliminate easy errors.

On his Transfiguration exam, Solid understanding of the basics, was written in McGonagall's handwriting. Next, include more logical progression of ideas.

A spiky back ink had told him firmly he had, No comprehension of foundational potions knowledge, courtesy of Snape. Start from scratch.

His Defence Against the Dark Arts marker, tentatively Dumbledore, he thought, had simply written, Marvellous work! However, knowing Dumbledore, Harry thought perhaps he should go over that too. Dumbledore, Harry was beginning to see, was not necessarily a detail-oriented wizard. There was no need to comment on Harry's History and Astronomy exams: they were his worst.

Harry ruffled his hair in frustration as he looked over his work.

He thought he'd done okay. He'd gotten almost all of the short answer questions correct, and had written quite a lot in the long answer and essay questions too. But from the looks of the comments – he thought he remembered some kind of Charm families, something to do with the senses? – it looked like he'd have to review first year all over again. Again.

Bleakly, Harry pulled out all his study notes for Charms, and the six most helpful textbooks. Then, reluctantly, Harry also hunted down his copy of Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling. To the best of his knowledge, the stuffy little book was so long winded and boring that only Hermione had made it to the end. And possibly Percy, Harry amended.

Harry spread a new piece of parchment flat on his desk and got ready to take notes on the very first spell Flitwick had ever taught them: wingardium leviosa. He might not be Hermione, but his future plans – his future – were literally on the line here, and Harry had been accused of being stubborn before. No pitiful little first year spells would be getting in his way, or his name wasn't Harry Potter.

Thus, while Neville spent his holidays pottering around in his greenhouses, while Hermione reacquainted herself with the local library, and Ron realised that he was no longer used to having his mother hover over him all day – he got letters from them regularly – Harry himself kept to a rather strict schedule.

As Monday turned to Tuesday, and then Wednesday, the days of the week seemed to blend. Harry's days seemed to repeat themselves: breakfast in Diagon Alley, study, and Occlumency were only interrupted by the occasional trip outside to tidy up the gardens or whitewash the house when nobody was looking. After the long hours of shutting himself in his trunk, the chance to move his body was almost welcome. Harry wondered if Aunt Petunia had noticed what he was doing.

On a positive note, he was totally undisturbed and fell quickly into a regular routine: study, move his body, study, move his body.

The downside of it all was that his repetitive schedule made it difficult wake up early, and Harry began to lose his drive. Realising the danger, he began to look for reasons to get out of bed.

Ironically, it was his studies that helped Harry in the end. By the end of a long, focused day, study materials and extra textbooks were scattered all over the study, left where they lay as Harry finally staggered to bed. Someone needed to tidy them up, and he didn't have a house elf.

He wondered at the irony of it. Getting himself out of bed to do dreaded chores: piling his dirty clothes in a corner instead of over the floor, returning the miscellaneous study items from the day before were returned to their shelves, hardly seemed the thing to motivate a teenage boy. Making the messes was easy – he knew the library charm well now, and he knew accio like he could do it in his sleep. However, not even the old Hermione had known what charms were cast in the Hogwarts library to return books to their places; Harry had to do all that by hand.

Wake up. Roll out of bed. Collect a pile of books and stagger to his bookshelves to reshelve his texts, blinking as his brain rebooted and came online. The mindless routine was all that got Harry out of his bed in the morning.

Then, once the compartments in his trunk were as organised as was practical, Harry crept out of his luggage and into the cupboard under the stairs. He didn't know how long his muggle-repelling charms on the cupboard would last for, so he redid those every morning, and then, with the feeling that his day was finally starting, his mind finally alert, Harry Apparated into Diagon Alley with a pop.

What with the Dursley's not wanting to think of him, the best way for Harry to stay out of their way was to have meals outside. Now, after a week of regular patronage, Tom was beginning to cook Harry's regular breakfast, full English with butterbeer and a Daily Prophet on the side, so it was piping hot and ready to eat when Harry walked in the door.

He regularly sat at a table in corner of the Cauldon, well away from the floo access and the entrance from muggle London. Mindful of his exaggerated reputation, Harry kept a dark hood up and over his head even while he was eating.

When combined with Tom's willingness to run interference, he found himself unnoticed and uninterrupted as he came to enjoy his new habits.

It was strange, Harry realised some time during the second week of the holidays, that he could so enjoy being alone in public like this.

He'd enjoyed exploring the Alley in his third year, of course, after the debacle of blowing up Aunt Marge. But somehow the freedom of managing his own time here, the lack of adult oversight or money troubles –

Harry cut off the thought. He hadn't worried about money or adults the last time he stayed in the Alley either. So what was different?

Over the course of his breakfast Harry soon came to realise that his first year back at Hogwarts had not been quite what he was expecting either.

Ron, Hermione, Neville were great. They really were. Even if Harry had not quite expected to miss his originals as much as he had.

But, Harry gnawed at his fork, deep in thought, they were young.

Terribly young. All his grand plans and aspirations aside, Harry had found as the year went on that he simply could not bear to throw them into harm's way. He'd avoided the showdown with Malfoy, the adventure with the dragon, the mystery of Snape. There was no bitter enmity, no pushing – breaking, Harry admitted to himself – of the rules, no strange suspicions about adult motivations. Their safety had been more important to him than their old bonds of trust, Harry realised.

Not taking them down the corridor on the third floor spoke for itself, Harry thought. He'd told Dumbledore that himself. They should be safe.

The thought distracted Harry for a moment, a niggling sense of discomfort began rising from his stomach –

Then Harry pushed the thought away. He was thinking.

It was the responsibility, he finally realised. Having his friends follow in his footsteps, unthinking, trusting. He'd had the responsibility to keep them safe from harm all year.

His current lightness, the quickness of his step came not just from making it successfully through his first meeting with Voldemort. It came from the fact that his friends were safe, back in their own lives for now. That he'd kept them protected.

The thought made him feel strangely alone, but he didn't hate it.

He went back to continue his regular holiday routine, and the days rolled on.

His days always began with breakfast in the Alley in his own private corner, with the occasional conversation with Tom. Or his house-elf, of whom Harry had been surprised to learn. But it made sense, now that he thought of it. Tom couldn't possibly be running such a busy inn all on his own.

It seemed the cheerful little chef-elf had good thoughts about him, if the sheer and utter perfection of his meals gave any indication. Perhaps Tom spoke kindly about Harry to his staff.

After breakfast, Tom would give him some pastries in a bag and Harry could leave, heading to the Post Office where he dealt with any correspondence his friends would send him. Poor Martha tended not to get in to work early enough to see him, despite Gladys' best efforts to encourage some kind of friendship between them. Harry didn't feel too guilty about that.

Then, regular as clockwork and with the help of a notice-me-not and Cloak when necessary, Harry snuck out to a private spot and Apparated back to Privet Drive, where he spent the day in study.

It was exactly a week after Dudley's twelfth birthday, just after dinner, when Harry ran into Petunia upstairs on his way to the bathroom.

She shrieked, then clapped her hands violently over her mouth.

"What's going on, Petunia darling?" Vernon called upstairs from his seat in the lounge.

Scowling at Harry in the evening light, she called back to her husband downstairs, "Nothing, Vernon dear. I just thought I saw a spider. I'll sort it out now."

"Of course you will, Pet," her husband called back, and she glared at Harry furiously in the tense and awkward silence.

"What are you doing here?" she snapped at him, so angry her voice shook. "When did you come back?"

"About a week ago?" Harry muttered. "A bit longer? Sorry, I was trying to stay out of your way."

"Don't just sneak into somebody's house like a thief," his aunt scolded. "Has Diddy seen you? Has Vernon?"

"No? Did they say something?"

She shook her head minutely, "Nothing, but I thought you might have the manners to have told someone you were living here again. When do you leave?"

Harry scratched his head. He hadn't been bothering with the Sleekeazy's stuff while he was on holiday, and his hair stood up at all angles. "A few weeks? It's just the bathroom I need while I'm here, I think. I'm barely even in the house, you know."

"See that it stays that way," his aunt hissed. "Look, run along, so nobody finds you here. We were happy with you gone, and they'll be happy if they think it's still true."

"What about my chores?" Harry asked, confused. This wasn't how he had expected anything to go at all.

It was hard to tell in the dark, but Aunt Petunia seemed to pale. "You've been doing them? Without supervision? What have you touched, boy?"

For some reason Harry felt a frisson of disappointment in his gut. "Just the gardens, like always. I whitewashed the-"

"Fool boy."

Aunt Petunia muttered something about the weeds growing slowly, which Harry took to mean his presence was a complete and utter surprise.

Standing in the dimly-lit passage, Harry cringed a little inside as he saw his aunt's hands shaking, her lips pursed tightly and her bony shoulders tight with tension. He'd surprised her, he knew. She was angry.

"So," he interrupted awkwardly, "did you want me to…stop?"

"…Spend some time in the front garden weekday mornings, so the neighbours can see you're still alive," Petunia said with a defeated sigh. "If you get in and out early, Dudders might not even notice you're around. I'll talk to Vernon. Now run off with you."

She shooed him away with her hands, and Harry snuck into the bathroom for his evening shower. A quick silencing spell stopped his relatives downstairs from hearing a thing, and he crept back into his cupboard soon after, feeling strange in the chest.

Was it…dumb, for him to hope that Aunt Petunia would be nice to him now he was staying out of her way? Since they'd never seen magic from Hagrid, never been threatened with pig's tails or magic lollies, he'd kind of hoped that he'd be somewhat more welcome in the Dursley's house.

He thought he had tried to be nicer to them, obliging. Done chores, stayed in the cupboard, been silent and out of sight. Although they hadn't noticed his most recent efforts, obviously.

Perhaps keeping his presence secret had backfired on him, Harry thought. The sudden shock of running into him in the corridor certainly seemed to have left an impression on his aunt. He didn't think it was a good one, somehow.

But he'd stopped costing them money since he left for Hogwarts last year, so his financial burden couldn't be much of an issue any more. Well, except for the water he used for the shower and toilet flush. Perhaps he could bathe out of the house? Were there spells for that? Or he could always settle for a bath in his trunk, Harry admitted. Wizarding plumbing tended to revolve around wand-work: he knew aguamenti, he could figure out how to warm bath water on his own. A modern shower was just such a muggle luxury.

Petunia's bitter face loomed large in his mind, and Harry stifled a sigh. Showers were out, it seemed. First thing tomorrow he would go to the Alley and buy a good bathtub. It was worth giving up a few modern comforts if it pleased his aunt.

He should probably buy himself some muggle shampoo with his own money too.

And a…chamber pot? Is that what wizards living out of a trunk used these days? He'd have to visit a few shops for advice.

Fortunately for Harry, as he crept into bed a few minutes later, he had regained his usual equilibrium. The Dursleys may not be thrilled at having him back in the house, but he wasn't the one having to have an awkward conversation with Uncle Vernon about his temporary tenancy. Even if Vernon did react badly – which he would, but still – the muggle repelling spells, and the other protections that he laid on his cupboard every morning, would keep Harry out of his way.

What was Vernon in the face of his future plans, anyway?