Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters in the Harry Potter series.

Recognizable portions from this chapter have been taken from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J.K. Rowling

Chapter 2: The Abbotts and the Grim


When Harry had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming and taking him away from the horror-house that was number four, Privet Drive. After he'd turned eleven however, and the whole story about Hogwarts had come out, he'd dreamed of a fantastical way by which he could escape the unbearable summers that he had to spend with his relatives – a way by which he could leave and never return, once and for all.

Blowing up his Aunt Marge and running away in the dead of the night, however, was definitely not one of the fantastical escapes he'd dreamt about.

Harry slumped onto the sidewalk of Magnolia Crescent, too tired from the exertion of dragging along his trunk and Hedwig's cage. Once again, he was sorely tempted to make his trunk feather-light, tie it to his broom and fly all the way to Gringotts in London. Then he could withdraw some money from the fortune his parents had left him…and begin life as an outcast.

It was a horrible prospect, but he was certain he didn't have any other alternative at the moment. He had almost definitely broken the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry with his outburst of magic – it was a wonder he wasn't surrounded by owls from the Ministry of Magic carrying letters that announced his expulsion from Hogwarts, and by representatives of the Ministry to do just that.

His anger at the insults and berating Aunt Marge had doled out to him was now replaced by panic, with a certain amount of helplessness. Harry didn't think he'd ever felt so alone before – not even when he had been locked in his cupboard under the stairs for weeks on end. He was sure Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Susan and Hannah would all want to help him – but he had no means of contacting them with Hedwig gone. As smart as she was for an owl, she couldn't sense if her master needed her from such a great distance.

Faced with no other viable options, Harry shuffled over to where he'd left his trunk. He opened his trunk once again, pushing the contents aside to extract his Invisibility Cloak – an heirloom from his father – when a funny prickling on the back of his neck made him straighten up suddenly, looking around him once more with a wary eye, his wand at the ready.

He was being watched.

But the street appeared to be deserted, and no lights shone from any of the large square houses in the vicinity. Yet, Harry could sense someone, or something, standing behind him in the narrow gap between the garage and the main house of number two, watching his every move.

Despite the ominous situation, Harry smiled to himself: here was finally a chance to test what he'd learnt from all the reading he'd done all summer. His books on Defence had instructed on some appropriate postures for duelling, and for preparing for an attack from behind him. Recalling the text from the books in his mind, he adjusted his stance – feet spread slightly apart, head cocked to one side to hear for anything unusual, wand firmly gripped in his right hand, while his left arm hung a little loose, ready to steady his balance once he spun around to face his assailant.

'Lumos,' he muttered quietly, and a bright light appeared at the end of his wand, almost dazzling him. He slowly shifted to a more optimum position on the sidewalk, but before he could do more than begin his pirouette, the thing whined.

Confused, Harry turned around, his lit wand causing the pebble-dashed walls of number two to sparkle in the near-darkness of the street. And between the walls of the house and the gleaming garage door, Harry saw, quite distinctly, the hulking outline of something very big, with wide, gleaming eyes.

The thing whined again, before moving out into the open from the narrow alleyway; it was a rather large dog, with shaggy black fur, but it looked dreadful. It was unbelievably thin – like it hadn't been fed for weeks; it was tottering slightly to the left as it made its way to stand in front of Harry; and it had scratch and bite marks along its muzzle and torso – it looked like it had been in a rough scuffle, and had come out of it looking worse for the wear.

Despite the fact that it was just a dog, Harry still refused to lower his wand; he barely noticed the light from his wand tip glowing brighter in intensity as his heart thudded painfully fast from nervousness, and he only vaguely registered it diminishing when his apprehension ebbed away. He looked down at the pitiful creature – it was now stretched out before him, its large eyes staring unblinkingly at him, as though it wanted to memorize an image of Harry into its brain.

Harry looked around – he didn't see anyone who could possibly come and claim the dog as their own. His heart went out to the little mutt – he knew how it felt to not have some food or drink for a long time at a stretch. He moved back to his trunk, extracted what remained of Mrs Weasley's Pumpkin Pasties, and offered one to the dog. The dog looked between him and the Pasty in his hand for a moment, then gave a small joyful bark and devoured the pie in one go.

Harry laughed; even though he didn't know who it belonged to or where it came from, the enthusiasm of the dog was quite infectious. The second Pasty ended up the same way as the first, and so did the third, when Harry noticed he was out of the pies.

'Sorry boy, I'm afraid I don't have any more,' he whispered to the dog. The dog barked again – one could almost mistake it for a laugh – before giving his hand a lick and settling down near his feet. Harry chuckled again, moving his hand to scratch the dog behind its ears, an act which the dog found extremely pleasing, if its moans were anything to go by.

'So where are you from, hmm?' asked Harry, still scratching the dog behind its ears; the dog moaned quietly again. 'You don't seem to have a collar, and I know for a fact that none of the folks here have a dog.'

The dog gave another bark – almost as if it were saying, 'Good job Harry!'

Harry snorted. He was sure he was imagining things – he doubted whether the dog could really understand him in the first place, and if it did, whether it could respond the way he thought it did respond.

Then again, Hedwig could definitely understand him – or at least he thought she could – so it wouldn't be such a stretch to assume that this dog could comprehend what he was saying as well.

Harry's hand suddenly stiffened and paused in the petting of the dog, a curious thought spreading through him. What if this dog was magical? Did it belong to another wizard or witch in the area? If it did, why did it escape from there? Or worse…was it from the Ministry? Some sort of a scout, sent ahead by the Ministry representatives to let down his guard.

The dog had noticed his momentary pause – it looked up at him and gave another whine. Harry stared back at the dog, his mind whirring with possibilities and potential theories, each more irrational and fantastical than the previous – when suddenly, not for the first time that night, his neck was assaulted with a funny prickling feeling.

There was no mistaking it this time – he was definitely being watched. And not just by another stray animal – he could sense, rather than see, another person standing where the dog had stood not more than five minutes ago. He slowly got to his feet, assuming another duelling stance that allowed for quick movement – just in case he needed to get away.

'Lumos,' he muttered again, and for the second time that night, the walls of number two gleamed brightly in the light from his wand; and this time, he could just about make out, quite distinctly, the large, hulking outline of a tall person, but his face was shrouded in the darkness. If only the person could step forward just a bit more, Harry would know who it was…

The dog, however, seemed to have recognized the person almost instantaneously; hackles raised, it bared its teeth and growled quite menacingly at the intruder. Amidst the growls, Harry could discern a low, raspy chuckle coming from the intruder – it was a man, and he clearly wasn't too intimidated by the dog's growls. Harry wasn't sure what this person was playing at; he knew he would have been quite scared if a dog like this had bared its teeth at him rather threateningly.

And then the man stepped out from the shadows into the light – and Harry's stomach churned with surprise, shock, and most of all, fear.

He was a large, vicious-looking man, with matted grey hair and whiskers; his arms and chest were thick and bulging against his rather tight robes, a wand held loosely in his right hand. But what repulsed Harry the most was his face: his eyes were a deep blood-red in colour, and he had sharp, pointed teeth, almost rivalling those of the dog. His mouth was currently twisted in something between a snarl and a smirk – as if he was overjoyed at cornering his prey at last, but disgusted that he had to finish it in such a place.

Harry thought the term 'prey' which his mind had used while describing the man's expression was rather appropriate – he looked positively beastly. The man raised his left hand to scratch at his face, apparently deep in thought, and Harry suddenly noticed his long, yellowing fingernails, adding to his bestial appearance.

Harry was, at that moment, extremely glad that he'd adopted a stance that allowed him to run if he needed to.

He just didn't count on his trunk being right behind him.

Harry stepped backwards, and promptly tripped over his open trunk. His wand flew out of his hand, and he flung an arm out to break his fall as he landed, hard, on the edge of the sidewalk.

Just then, several things happened almost at once.

The dog gave a thunderous bark, and rushed towards where the man was standing. Its teeth were completely bared, the look in its eyes feral as it went for the kill.

The man shifted his stance so fluidly; Harry wouldn't have noticed it even if he had been able to. From a position of apparent thought, the man was on all fours in a blink of an eye, and with an animalistic howl of rage, charged straight towards the dog.

There was a very loud, deafening BANG – Harry first thought was that it was from the collision between the dog and the man. He raised his head – he'd slammed it onto the sidewalk when he'd tripped over his trunk – and, despite his grogginess, looked on in astonishment at the scene before him.

The BANG he'd heard had definitely been from a collision – but it certainly hadn't come from the coming together of the dog and the bestial man. A triple-decker, violently purple bus had just appeared in front of him out of nowhere. Gold lettering above the windows of the first floor of the bus spelled The Knight Bus.

Harry looked further down the street; it appeared as if the man had been knocked down the road by the bus. Harry was sure the man would be unconscious after such a fall, but to his amazement, the man slowly got to his feet, albeit unsteadily. He looked around for a minute, as if searching for something, before walking off down the road as if he hadn't just been hit by a bus.

For a moment, Harry wondered if he had been knocked silly by his fall: no one could have survived such a collision, much less get up after being hit without so much as a scratch, and nonchalantly just walk off. Then a conductor in a purple uniform – comically identical to the purple of the bus – leapt out of the back door and began speaking loudly into the night.

Harry barely paid any attention to him: he was still wondering how on earth the man had survived that crash. His pondering led to another question – what happened to the dog?

He got up rather suddenly, and was forced to steady himself from a bout of head-rush. Ignoring the calls from the conductor – who'd just realized that his passenger had been on the ground and hadn't heard a word of what he'd been spouting off – Harry moved around to stare at the now-darkened alleyway. His eyes and ears strained to make out any sign of the dog's presence – any movement in the shadows, any small moan or whine.

Five minutes later, however, he was forced to accept that the dog had simply vanished. Harry made his way back to his trunk, thoroughly confused with the events that night. Why had the dog charged at the man? Did it know him – was he a former owner of the dog? Was the dog a magical creature – maybe that could explain how it seemed to understand every word Harry had said. And most importantly – how on earth did that man survive that collision?

The conductor's shrill voice cut through his thoughts. 'Woss with you?'

'Nothing, nothing,' replied Harry distractedly. The enormity of his current predicament – on the run from the Ministry of Magic for blowing up his aunt – hit him like a sack of bricks, and the panic he'd felt earlier was slowly setting in.

'Well, you did flag us down, dincha?' asked the conductor. 'Stuck out your wand 'and, dincha?'

'Wand hand?' repeated Harry. The conductor gave him a funny look, and he quickly backtracked. 'Oh! I mean – yes, I did flag you down, of course. Where – where do you go anyway?'

The conductor was now looking at him extremely suspiciously, but he answered anyway. 'We can take you anywhere you like, long's it's on land. Can't do nuffink underwater, though,' he added wistfully, as though it was a matter of great shame.

'Any – anywhere? Wow, that's pretty impressive,' said Harry quickly, hoping that a bit of flattery would distract the conductor enough from his suspicious looks.

It did the trick; the conductor now wore a proud expression on his face. 'Ar, the Knight Bus at your service – Stan Shunpike as your conductor an' Ernie Prang at the wheel.'

'Listen,' Harry interjected before Stan could go on a monologue about the Knight Bus, 'how much would it be to get to Diagon Alley?'

Harry paid the required number of silver Sickles to Stan, who helped him manoeuvre his trunk and Hedwig's cage inside the bus. As he sat down on one of the brass-bedsteads on the ground level deck, right behind Ernie's armchair, he thought he'd had enough drama for the night.

How very wrong he was.


To say that Harry was enjoying his new-found freedom from the Dursleys' would be a massive understatement.

Granted, he was only allowed to wander around Diagon Alley, but he felt absolutely no desire to break his word to Cornelius Fudge, and stray back into the Muggle world. He'd been to Diagon Alley only twice since he'd joined Hogwarts as a scrawny eleven-year old kid, but the long cobbled street, with its many shops and peddlers still fascinated him to no end.

It took Harry several days to get used to this strange new feeling of liberty from the strict schedules and routines the Dursleys' had imposed upon him during his stay there. He could now wake up whenever he wanted, eat whatever he wanted, and most of all, do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. The feeling was a bit foreign to him, and he knew he would only be there for three weeks before he had to board the Hogwarts Express on September 1, but he was determined to make the most of it.

After topping up his money bag with golden Galleons, silver Sickles and bronze Knuts from his Gringotts vault, Harry had to forcefully remind himself that, despite the fortune that awaited him in the bowels of London, he still had five more years of schooling to finish, and it wouldn't do for him to ask the Dursleys for money to buy spellbooks and the like. So it was with a certain amount of steadfast resolve that he went about making his necessary purchases for the coming school year without going overboard – potions ingredients from the apothecary, including some interesting substitutes suggested by his 'Potions and Potioneering' book; new robes and Muggle clothes from Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions; and most importantly, he had to buy his new school books, which would include those for his two new subjects, Care of Magical Creatures and Divination.

Scratch that: he only needed the new book for Divination, apart from the usual additions. He'd consulted his book list almost as soon as it had come, wondering if he'd already purchased some of those books during his ordering spree earlier in the summer. He'd been disappointed when none of his purchases had turned up on the list – but pleasantly surprised when the Monster Book of Monsters was on the list as his Care of Magical Creatures textbook. He'd also felt quite relieved – Hagrid would have just as likely sent him a textbook as he would have sent him a book for helping him with a new pet of his.

A loud ripping noise greeted Harry as he entered Flourish and Blotts. The bookstore, which usually had a display of gold-embossed glossy spellbooks the size of paving slabs near the window, had instead a large iron cage, which held about a hundred copies of The Monster Book of Monsters – or at least what was left of them anyway. The scene inside the iron cage was absolute bedlam – torn pages were flying everywhere as the books, as vicious and unruly as Harry recalled them to be based on his experience with his copy – which was still safely belted tight and locked in his school trunk – snapped, growled and grappled furiously and aggressively with each other.

Harry noticed the manager of the store hurrying towards him, while his assistant drew on a pair of very thick gloves, picked up a rather large knobbly walking stick and headed towards the iron cage, his face and gait betraying his apprehension about the confrontation with the Monster Books.

'Hang on,' said Harry quickly, 'I've already got one of those.'

A look of enormous relief spread across the assistant's face as he stripped off the gloves, dropped the walking stick, and promptly went over to attend to a group of students who had just entered the shop.

'Thank heavens for that, my boy. It's been an absolute nightmare, I tell you! Why anyone would want to set this as a textbook, I'll never know! I'll tell you this though: we're never stocking them again, never! Been bitten five times already this morning, I have…'

The manager's voice tuned out as Harry opened his booklist, carefully scanning it to see what else he would need. He looked back up to catch the manager's attention – who was now going about some Invisible Book of Invisibility and the massive loss he'd made on them – when he paused.

What are the odds…?

There was a book among a display on a small table to the side from where he was: Death Omens: What to Do When You Know the Worst Is Coming. If the title wasn't foreboding enough, the front cover of the book had a picture of a great black dog, with shaggy fur and eyes gleaming in the dark background of the book's cover. He recognized the dog almost immediately: it was the same one he'd petted and spoken to all those nights ago on Magnolia Crescent.

'Excuse me,' said Harry, interrupting the manager's ramblings. The manager snapped his mouth shut with a mildly affronted expression, as if he'd been denied the pleasure of chattering away on his misfortunes.

'What is that dog doing on that book there?' Harry pointed to the Death Omens book.

The manager blanched as he followed the direction of Harry's finger, and turned back to Harry, his face betraying a mixture of his trepidation and apprehension.

'Well, that's the Grim of course.' His voice had dropped to almost a whisper; Harry had to strain to hear it properly amidst the babbling issuing from the group of students at the front of the store. 'It's an omen of death – people who see it have been found dead after twenty-four hours.' He paused, a worried and anxious expression on his face. 'You – you haven't seen that anywhere have you?'

Harry instantly knew that saying 'yes' would bring about a world of unnecessary consequences, so he wisely kept his mouth shut and shook his head.

'Well, that's good then,' breathed the manager, relief etching his facial features. 'I wouldn't read that book if I were you, though,' he continued, as Harry looked back at the book once more. 'You'll start seeing death omens everywhere; it's enough to frighten anyone to death.'

'Does this have anything to do with Divination?' asked Harry.

'But of course!' replied the manager, evidently glad that the conversation had steered itself into safer waters. 'Looking for future omens in tea cups and crystal balls is one of the main exercises in that subject; mind, you'd be hard pressed to find a Seer who doesn't advocate such stuff.'

'A Seer?

'Someone who can predict the future. All Seers are magical, of course. Them Muggles who claim to look into future – ha! A bunch of tricksters of frauds they are – yes sir, very much so!'

The manager had now seized onto the topic of fake and fraudulent Muggle Seers, so Harry took this opportunity to look at the dog again. It had an uncanny resemblance to the canine he'd interacted with on Magnolia Crescent, and despite logic screaming at him otherwise, he somehow knew that one of his initial suspicions from that night had just be confirmed.

That dog was definitely magical.

Question was - had he really seen an omen of death that night on Magnolia Crescent?

The manager lightly tapped Harry on his shoulder.

'Anything else?' he said

'Yes,' said Harry, tearing his eyes away from the dog's gleaming ones, and dazedly returning to his booklist once again. 'I need – um – Intermediate Transfiguration, The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Three, and –' he consulted the list once more, '- Unfogging the Future, by Cassandra Vablatsky.'

'Ah, starting Divination, are you? I wondered why you'd asked that question earlier about omens,' said the manager, as he climbed a set of steps to take down a thick black-bound book from the back of the shop. 'Here you are. Very good guide to all your basic fortune-telling methods – palmistry, crystal balls, tea leaves, bird entrails…'

'Hi Harry!'

Harry turned around to someone calling him from the front of the shop. Hannah Abbott was standing there, waving frantically at him with a huge smile on her face, with who Harry assumed must be her parents. Her blonde hair was done up in her typical pigtails, although, Harry noticed, it seemed a little longer, and she'd gotten a fringe as well. He waved back to her, indicating that he would be with them in a minute after collecting his books.

As he made his way to where she stood with her parents, arms laden with his new books, he noticed the similarities between Hannah and her mother: they had the same round, kindly face – not unlike Mrs. Weasley's – the same warm, radiating smile, and the same soft nose. Her eyes, however, were that of her father's, who was standing there with a rather stern look on his rugged face. Harry observed that while Hannah's blue eyes were full of warmth, her father's looked rather firm. He had the sudden urge to maintain a safe distance from Mr. Abbott as quickly as he could.

'Hi Hannah.' He greeted her with a wave of his own.

'Fancy seeing you here this early, Harry! How have you been? Goodness, you've grown a lot over this summer haven't you? Speaking of which, how were your holidays? Did you have fun? Did you get –' Hannah was, to Harry's relief, interrupted by her mother clearing her throat.

'You must be Harry Potter,' she said, extending her hand out to shake Harry's hand. 'Hannah's told us a lot about you this summer.'

'Oh, um, I see. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Abbott,' stuttered Harry. He couldn't imagine why people would want to talk about him during their summer holidays. He cast an inquisitive glance towards Hannah, who had turned a bright shade of red at her mother's words and refused to meet his eyes.

'Indeed. It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Mr. Potter,' said Mr. Abbott in a characteristically deep voice, as he now shook Harry's hand. Somehow, Harry felt that it wouldn't be a wise move to cross Mr. Abbott. His blue eyes were stern and sharp; Harry got the impression that he was being x-rayed quite thoroughly. He was broad chested, with rather muscular arms (as Harry made out from the extremely crushing grip during the handshake). He had long hair which he swept back and tied into a small ponytail. A single ear-ring dangled from his left ear, giving Harry an impression of a rather cool, yet fierce, no-nonsense person.

Once again, Harry reminded himself not to get on the wrong side of Mr. Abbott, for whatever reason.

'Have you finished your shopping Mr. Potter?' asked Mrs. Abbott kindly. Harry nodded hesitantly and turned around, where the manager of Flourish and Blotts had, by this time, ringed up Harry's purchases at the counter and stored them away in a rather large book bag. Harry settled the bill – including the balance from his summer acquisitions (6 Galleons and 8 Sickles), before returning to his conversation with the Abbotts.

'Yes, Mrs. Abbott, I'm done for today, thank you,' he said with all the politeness he could muster. He made to turn around once again to head out of the shop, when Mr. Abbott's large hand landed on his shoulder.

'Do join us for lunch, why don't you? Unless you've already eaten, of course.'

Harry gulped. It was one thing to speak to a girl without stuttering and stammering – he later attributed this to his abysmal social skills – but to speak to the parents of the said girl who, incidentally, had been talking about him for most of the summer was a different story altogether. As he conjured up what he felt was a calm, accepting smile, he only hoped that the afternoon wouldn't end badly.


By the end of the meal, Harry had to admit that his fears about dining with the Abbotts were completely unfounded. Lunch turned out to be a pleasant affair at the Leaky Cauldron, where Tom, the wizened, toothless landlord had insisted on serving all of Harry's favourites, free of charge. They made their way through quite a sumptuous three-course meal, rounded off with a treacle tart that Harry swore rivalled that of the Hogwarts' feasts. Conversation between Harry and the Abbotts was also calm, with barely a mention of the adventures and happenings of the past year at school.

The Abbotts, as Harry found out, lived right outside London in Windsor and Maidenhead. Mr. Henry Abbott was a wizard who worked as part of the Accident Reversal Squad in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes at the Ministry of Magic. From what Harry could surmise, his job was to conduct repairs for damages caused by wizarding accidents – ranging from out-of-control broomsticks to people Splinching themselves.

'I'm sorry – what? Splinching?'

Mr. Abbott gave Harry a funny look, as if he was questioning the latter's sanity because he didn't know what Splinching was.

'Yes, Splinching,' said Hannah quickly, clearly looking to diffuse any unwanted tension. 'When people Apparate – that's disappearing from one place and reappearing in another almost instantaneously – they may sometimes leave some body parts behind.'

Harry had the sudden image of a pair of eyeballs and an arm casually lying on the sidewalk of Privet Drive, and grimaced.

'Daddy's job there is to restore those poor people's body parts before any Muggles find them first. It's a bit difficult though – there's a lot of blood involved –' Harry noticed Hannah shuddering involuntarily '– not to mention the hysterical state these people end up in, which makes it even tougher to track down their starting point of Apparation.'

'Have any Muggles actually found these…parts first, before the Ministry did?' asked Harry curiously.

'Once,' intoned Mr. Abbott with a grimace of his own. 'Horrible day, that was. Probably the worst of my career.'

And he refused to say any more on the subject.

Mrs. Clementine Abbott was, to Harry's surprise, a Muggle, who'd grown up in the French city of Marseille. Mr. Abbott had met her while he'd been called to Toulouse by the French Ministry for an emergency. She'd only known of the existence of the wizarding world after she'd married Mr. Abbott.

'It doesn't bother me,' she said with a laugh, and only then did Harry notice the slightest tinge of a French accent in her speech. 'I do not mind doing things at home the – what do you call it? – Muggle way, I'm quite used to it.'

Hannah's parents shared a look, and at that instant, Harry was strongly reminded of a similar look he'd seen on his parents' faces, in one of the photographs in the photo album of his parents that Hagrid had given him at the end of his first year. He suddenly felt a deep sense of sadness and longing for the life he'd never had, and for the parents he'd never had the chance to meet.

'Harry? Are you alright?' Hannah's concerned face came into view.

'Huh?'

Hannah was still staring at him concernedly. 'You seemed to have phased out for a minute there.'

'What – oh. Sorry, just thinking about something else,' he stammered out, taking a huge gulp of water to hide his embarrassment at his lack of attention and his display of weakness.

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Professor Dumbledore's words echoed in the recesses of his mind, as he gave a watery smile and re-joined the conversation.


Twenty minutes later, Harry found himself saying goodbye to the Abbotts before heading upstairs to his room in the Leaky Cauldron. Sunlight was streaming in through the open windows; it appeared that someone had come in to clean up his room. He dumped the heavy book bag from Flourish and Blotts, the ingredients from the Apothecary, his robes from Madam Malkin's, and the other items he'd purchased on top of his trunk and looked out onto the cobbled street of Diagon Alley. Harry could hear the sounds of the buses rolling by on the unseen Muggle roads behind him, interspersed with the cacophony of the crowds in Diagon Alley.

He was just about to turn back towards his room when he saw it - again.

A large dog with shaggy black fur was skulking in the narrow alley between two tall buildings in Diagon Alley; Harry noticed that the structures marked the entrance to Knockturn Alley at the far side of the street. His hands gripped the window-sill tightly, his mind racing and his heart thumping wildly…

'No way,' he whispered to himself.

As he continued to stare out the window, the dog turned its head from side to side, as if looking out for something. Satisfied that nothing was behind it, the canine lay down on the alley on all fours and closed its eyes; for all Harry knew, it had gone straight to sleep.

Something about the presence of the dog, coupled with his conversation with the manager of Flourish and Blotts earlier that day, convinced Harry to go down there and meet the dog once more. Who knows, maybe this time, it wouldn't result in him having a –

Don't think about that, said his mind forcefully. That was just a coincidence.

More importantly, as his mind just realized, he had been wondering about where the dog had disappeared off to after the events of that night. Now, he had a chance to find out.

A sudden noise behind him made him quickly jump around: his books had fallen off the top of his trunk and were now strewn about on the floor. He looked back onto the street, to make sure that the dog was still lying down at the same place.

To his relief, oddly, the dog was still there.

Five minutes of staring later, the dog was still there.

Satisfied that the dog wasn't about to go anywhere any time soon, Harry turned away from the window to go out to Diagon Alley once more that day. He caught sight of his reflection in the mirror above the basin in his room; he looked a lot better than he had those first few weeks with the Dursleys. Tom the landlord had insisted on feeding Harry up with extra servings at every meal for no extra charge. Harry had complained at first about his actions being too kind, but Tom had waved it off brusquely.

''S no big deal, Mr Potter. Those relatives of yours don't seem to be doing a good job of feeding you – you're a growing boy, for Merlin's sake! You need feeding, and don't you say no anymore,' he added quickly as Harry opened his mouth to interrupt, 'I'm not having it here, no sir!'

A few days later, however, Harry was appreciating the strict yet friendly way Tom had adopted to get him to eat more – he no longer looked like a 'scrawny, specky git', as Ron had so eloquently put it sometime back in second year. His new Muggle clothes from Madam Malkin's also fit him extremely well – the cast-offs from Dudley were now resting at the bottom of his trunk.

Harry had also noticed a subtle change in himself – he felt different. And it was a good different – he was a lot more confident and sure about himself, and he moved around a lot more freely than earlier. He supposed this had to do with his new clothes and his refined…physique, for lack of a better word. Of course, he was still shy of mingling with large crowds, but he was slowly and surely getting over it.

He raised his hand automatically and tried to make his hair lie flat.

'You're fighting a losing battle there, my dear,' said his mirror in a wheezy voice.

Harry glared at the mirror before exiting his room.

Tom whistled appreciatively as he re-entered the bar downstairs.

'Looking good, Mr Potter.' Harry's face reddened; Tom took the opportunity to needle him further: 'Going out for a date?'

If possible, Harry turned red even more as he spluttered to answer; he probably could have rivalled the Weasley red for the shade his face and neck now sported.

Tom let out a loud guffaw and waved him on to the back door, where the entrance to Diagon Alley was located.

'Off you go then,' chuckled the toothless landlord. 'Remember the rules, Mr Potter,' he said in a slightly raised voice as Harry disappeared behind the back door.

The archway to Diagon Alley opened with a tap of Harry's wand on the third brick from the left above the dustbin. Harry set off once more along the street. The blush from Tom's teasing had lessened, only to be replaced by, for some unknown reason, a feeling of apprehension which was slowly spreading through him. He forced his racing heartbeat to slow down as he approached the alleyway that separated Knockturn Alley from Diagon Alley.

Calm down, he told himself silently. Just calm down.

Yet he could not control the slight quickening of his pace as he dodged shoppers going through their last purchases for the afternoon. He all but ignored the usual crowd around Quality Quidditch Supplies which was, once again, surrounding the Firebolt – this was the first time during his stay in the Leaky Cauldron where he hadn't seen the new broomstick on each visit to Diagon Alley – sidestepped a wizard who was muttering about the exorbitant prices of Boomslang skin, passed a group of chattering students, one of who held the perfect, moving model of the galaxy he'd been tempted by earlier that week.

The number of people around him seemed to increase exponentially as he neared the alley…he could almost see the front paws of the dog now, even as he was jostled around by the crowd; his heart was pounding in his ears – why, he had no idea, even years later…he was almost there –

'Look out!'

'Watch it!'

Harry whirled around – someone had tripped while exiting the apothecary nearby, his cauldron flying from his hand, its contents soaring up into the air in a graceful arc, before the thick, yellowish-green liquid fell from its peak, right onto where Harry stood, frozen…