Chapter two: Holiday hunting and the PiPi situation

The small bell hanging over the glass door jingled, as a tall man, with dark brown hair and striking blue eyes, walked in and made his way to the free seat in front of the assistant's desk.

Sitting himself down, the man patiently waited for the young lady to put down her magazine.

Five minutes later the woman was still avidly reading. Probably some ridiculously sappy article, the man scoffed to himself. Trying to keep calm and not blow his cover in barely five minutes, he softly cleared his throat.

The woman, startled, un-buried her nose from the magazine, folded it away, and looked up with an annoyed look. Obviously her job description didn't say anything about serving customers, but it certainly seemed to have said something along the lines of: read your mags, and don't forget to be rude. Obviously.

However, her grumpy expression disappeared as soon as she saw who was sitting in front of her. The very handsome man gave her a rather pained smile, not that she noticed it, what with her ridiculously long fringe, dangling in front of her eyes. Once more, he cleared his throat and said in a deep, mellow voice. "Good morning, miss, I was wondering if you could give me some brochures, and some information regarding possible holiday destinations."

The man vaguely wondered, if busting through the door, Accio-ing the leaflets and causing havoc in general, would have been a better option. Probably not.

The woman just stared at him, slightly dazed, and mumbled: "Hi..."

Or maybe yes. They obviously weren't getting anywhere here.

Silence.

"... yes. Miss, the brochures...?"

"OH YEAH," she said, rather loudly, and busied herself with opening random drawers, pulling out various papers and putting some back in different draws, or shredding some others. "I'm Victoria, by the way, but you can call me Vicky, everyone does. Even my mother. My father doesn't even know that my actual name is Victoria, everyone just thinks I'm Vicky, not that I really mind. So, you know, you can call me Vicky!"

"Merlin... I don't think I want a holiday..." He muttered to himself.

"Yes, holidays," she said wistfully, interrupting him, "I was supposed to be going on one with my fiancé, but you know," she whispered conspiratorially, "we've been having problems."

The man gave her an incredulous look.

"Oh yeah! But I think I should start looking elsewhere. Find someone more appropriate, maybe then we could do something together. I mean, my new boyfriend and I."

(Insert pointed look and fluttering of magically elongated eyebrows on the woman's behalf.)

"Oh my God," Voldemort, who indeed, was sitting in a travel agency, muttered desperately.

After what had seemed like ages, but actually had been only five minutes or so, Harry had come to a few conclusions regarding his rather problematic situation.

His relatives had clearly abandoned him and put the house on sale: in other words, he couldn't stay here any longer.

The security wards the Headmaster had so painstakingly reminded him of, would only work if he resided under the Dursley's same roof. That was no longer the case.

The Wizarding world was clearly unaware of the current situation, thankfully, giving him the opportunity to act fast and according to his own terms.

Lastly, but not least, he had finally, recently turned seventeen. This meant he was now legally, according to Wizarding laws, an adult and able to perform magic without alerting some privacy invading devices, placed on his person and whatnot, by the bunch of chickens running around the Ministry of Magic, with their heads chopped off. Politicians, what would life be without them?

Harry was a free wizard. Harry was a free man! But mostly, Harry Potter was a horny seventeen year old boy, ready to party. He was going to have a proper holiday, maybe he'd start with some chilling out; he was going out for adventure.

And now, he was going to visit his Gringotts vault. Money, money, money.

"Here I come, Geronimo!"

Really. No, really, what was the world coming to this day?

Voldemort had apparrated straight to Diagon Alley, intent on finding the first travel agency, so that he could book a nice, relaxing utopia of a holiday. Up to now, however, he had only learnt that the shop assistant's name was Vicky, that she was engaged, but - since the moment Lord Voldemort, looking like Tom Riddle, had walked in through the door- seemed to have encountered some problems with her relationship.

"Unfortunately," the busty blonde had simpered, "we might be breaking up. Dreadful." And then she had given him another one of her pointed looks, and started suggesting the pamphlet "A guide to London", as a possible location for his holiday, since he was looking for something exotic. The minor detail that she was already in London, hadn't, as of yet, crossed her mind.

He knew absolutely nothing about what holiday-packages were on offer; if Ibitha was better than Tanzania; or if he should opt for a hitchhiking "tour" of New Zealand...

The girl had done nothing but simper and fawn, and try to hit on him. On him - ON HIM! Lord Voldemort, evilness extraordinaire and winner of "The- Best- Evil- Mwahaha- Laugh- And- Overlord- Appearance", for a smashing eleven years in a row!

Ah, the old days, those were the good ol' days... Then he'd regularly joined the competition, and hadn't even had to bribe the judge board, or use minor threats such as "loss of limbs" or "castration". Of course, he'd been sailing through the competition, until he'd incurred into the Potter Problem situation, which had now progressed to a good sixteen years.

Ever since, in fact, he'd regrettably developed a twitch in his right eye, which prevented him from giving off the perfect look of Evilness.

Not to mention... the committee of judges just seemed to rake over every, single, blasted detail! What was a Dark Lord to do?

He was starting to consider the idea of dispatching a hoard of vicious, blood-thirsty Death Eaters on them. Definitely on that evil one, that complete, utter prick... what was his name again? Ah, yes, Simon Cowell! (A.N: Rejoice, oh lovers, of Our Lord Sarcasm!)

Anyway, back to Vicky!

Voldemort: "Do we have to?"

Author: "Why, yes, of course!"

Back to Vicky it is, then.

Who was she kidding? He thought furiously. Did she seriously think he'd walked in from La-la land? Everyone knew he'd only ever been to Kentucky and Timbuktu! Now that he though of it, though, he'd also been on a few EasyJet flights here and there...

And anyway, he didn't even like blondes. He liked the dark haired sort.

He silently contemplated the pro's of morphing back into his "Dark Lord" guise and seeing if she was still willing to go out for a few pints, but refrained himself from doing so. Honestly, mass panic attacks were so messy.

Well, he'd had enough of this nonsense. He was legging it out of there. He silently wondered why he hadn't thought of escaping earlier, and promptly dissapparated.

And good job too, because barely five minutes later, a strange, green, flappy eared creature was seen tearing down the street, past the agency, waving what looked like a rug. And it looked fierce. Judging by the few crumpled old ladies who'd been trampled over by it. Weird, eh?

A.N: So, thanks to all who reviewed. I really appreciate that. School's started again, merde, but on the bright side my computer is back, I've finally finished "Bugs Bunny Lost in Time", and my, or rather, our family laptop, which I have obviously... commandeered, has only gone mad and thus been shut down forcefully (with a lot of swearing) a minimum of three times a day. Good, eh?