Obligatory disclaimer: I do NOT own Harry Potter. I'd have written the entire thing differently if I did.


Chapter 4- A Day out on the Town

The shopping spree following the bank visit went about as well as could be expected when it involved a disembodied Dark Lord and an eleven year old boy. The first thing they did was stop by The Leaky Cauldron and rent a room. Harry took a refreshing hot shower, and then followed that up with a pair of sandwiches for lunch. Now clean and fed, Harry and Tom headed out into the alley. Harry noticed the date on the front of the newspaper as they passed the Daily Prophet building. It was July 31st, and Harry's eleventh birthday. Tom alerted Harry that he should expect his Hogwarts letter soon, which led into Tom's hour long description of life at Hogwarts. Harry thought some parts were just plain silly, like being sorted by a talking hat and the staircase that changed layouts while you were walking up it, but the prospect of racing around on a broom sounded interesting, even though he had never heard of quidditch before. Eventually the talk led to mention the current headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.

'So let me get this straight,' Harry finally said, 'an old man who you'd never met and who teaches at Britain's biggest magical school finds you at an orphanage and introduces you to magic, at which time you realize that you can learn to harness the power that you were using to terrorize said orphanage. You then spent seven years in which you pulled the wool over the eyes of everyone and started your path to becoming a dark lord. You returned years later as a rising dark lord and inflicted a reign of terror across magical Britain, until some combination of events led to you being destroyed and a shredded piece of your soul ending up in my head. Am I right so far?'

'Don't forget that the same old man was the 'leader of the light' and was the staunchest of my adversaries, but otherwise yes,' replied Tom.

"Okay. After that, the exact same old man, who now heads the magical school and also is an important political figure in the government that sealed my parents' will, gets appointed my guardian and sticks me with my relatives. He then leaves me to be abused for years, either never checking on me or purposely leaving me to their tender care. Said old man not only did all of that, he also is most likely the one who fiddled with my magical core?'

'Yep, correct on all accounts,' Tom replied. The last bit was a recent discovery. While Harry was taking his shower in their rented room, Tom had returned to their shared mindscape to check on the recovery of Harry's core. While Tom's previously empty sphere was now filling with a trickle of magic from Harry's core, the rate was far too low. It meant that Harry's core was still being drained fairly heavily, despite no longer healing or fueling his body. Tom had seen what the problem was, but wanted to wait until that night to explain it to Harry when he showed up in their mindscape.

Their mental discussion ended just as Madam Malkin finished up her measurements for Harry's new wardrobe. They had hit the luggage store first for a backpack, then went for clothes. When they mentioned leaving room for a growth spurt to the clerk, she informed them that the majority of the clothes used sizing charms to adjust to the appropriate size, leaving enough room for two years growth before they needed replaced. The only things that didn't resize themselves were custom work or tailored robes, neither of which Harry needed.

A trip to a healer was the next stop, and that one was a bit more difficult. There was a wizarding hospital, called St. Mungo's, but visiting there would attract attention that neither of them cared for. Instead they went to the equivalent of a clinic, a professional healer running their own shop at Diagon Alley. At first things looked like they would run smoothly, and they were able to get an appointment. But when it came time for treatment, requiring their guardian to be present was the roadblock. Since the chances of getting the Dursleys to sign off on a doctor's visit were less than zero, and a meddlesome old man who they were trying to avoid the attention of was his appointed guardian, they would need to wait for the emancipation papers to get approved before they were able to get any of the more drastic treatments Harry needed. He needed a nutrient and growth potion regimen to fix his malnourishment, and an eye-correcting treatment to fix his vision. While Harry didn't mind wearing glasses, having perfect vision and no longer being reliant on them made him extremely happy. They would need to wait for the emancipation papers to be pushed through those things, though they were still able to pick up some general healing potions and a few nutritional potions for now.

Harry's next to last stop of the day was Ollivander's, so he could get his wand. An hour later he was finally matched to a holly and Phoenix feather wand, one which shared a core with Tom's old wand, now Voldemort's. Harry and Tom were unsure if this was a coincidence or a result of Tom riding around in his head, but they didn't have a way to find out and filed that tidbit away for later. After a light dinner at The Leaky Cauldron, Harry retired to the room he had rented.

The next morning, Harry and Tom hit a few more stores that they had added to their list. Tom had first taught Harry how to cast a basic glamour charm, one normally not taught until well into his education, but with Tom's knowledge and Harry's newly rested core they managed to pull it off within a few tries. Harry would temporarily look slightly taller and a few years older. Knockturn Alley was an experience for Harry, but Tom guided him through their visit. A short trip to a rather seedy wand store saw Harry with a backup wand of yew with griffin feather, rather rare and expensive materials. With his new wand he was even able to remove the Ministry tracking charms placed on his wand from Ollivander's, with Tom's help of course. Two illegal, invisible, anti-theft wand holsters later, and they headed for Flourish and Blotts.

Several books on basic magics taught at Hogwarts and a few on wizarding politics were added to their growing inventory. While Tom had been through Hogwarts before, it had been at least two decades ago and many things could have changed since then. The same with current Wizengamot, as an entire decade of laws had been passed while Tom was indisposed. To top it all off, the same way his personality was altered when the soul shard was shredded, several holes existed in Tom's knowledge from before that night. There were no major losses as far as they could tell, but there were several spells that Tom knew were useful that he could no longer remember how to cast, because he no longer had full knowledge about some of the wand movements or incantations. While annoying, most of these memory blanks would easily be filled when Harry went to Hogwarts. It was a given that he was going, as they had no other options at the moment. Before they left, Harry asked the clerk about the Boy-Who-Lived books, saying they were a birthday present for his younger sibling. After being directed to an entire bookshelf filled with atrociously alliterated fiction, Harry bought one of each book. Tom would keep an eye out for a solicitor on their way to Gringotts. Hopefully they could find some solution to the problem.

Upon arriving at Gringotts, Harry asked for account manager Gripclaw, mentioning he was following up on yesterday's visit. The teller gave Harry a once over look, but didn't say anything in response. He merely summoned a runner to guide him to Gripclaw. After they entered the Potter Accounts offie, Tom waited until the runner had left to drop the glamour. Gripclaw didn't seem surprised to see Harry standing where a moment ago had been another figure, and that only onfirmed for Harry that Tom's mentioning of wards monitoring for glamours was true.

"Well met, Account Manager Gripclaw," Harry said with a short bow. Tomhadnt had time to teach him much yet, but the first lessons were on pure-blood and goblin protocol. Gripclaw seemed mildly shocked for a moment, but it was a fleeting thing. "I have some business I wish to get done before the trip to my vault. May we begin?"

Gripclaw nodded and motioned for Harry to sit. "So, what business do you need taken care of Mr. Potter?"

Harry and Tom had spent a while making a list of things they needed to do, and several involved the Potter finances. "I require an audit of my accounts. It occurred to me that my trust vault is refiled annually, my magical guardian was someone unknown to me, and I was never in possession of my key. I noticed that most wizards merely present their key and are escorted to their vaults, and fear that someone may have taken money from me illicitly. Whether or not the audit uncovers anything suspicious, I wish to invalidate all keys save the one currently in my possession."

Gripclaw could empathize with the young man in front of him. Goblins valued honor and profit, and for someone to steal one's money out from beneath you would infuriate any goblin. "I can start the audit as soon as we are done here, but the keys will be an issue. There is no way to selectively deactivate keys to a vault. As your family's main vault is accessed by your signet ring, that vault will be fine. Your trust vault though, currently has three active keys," the goblin said as he looked down at a paper on his desk. "One is registered to your, for the moment, magical guardian, Albus Dumbledore. Another is registered to your father James Potter, but the key is unaccounted for. The third is the one you received yesterday. To remove access to the other keys, we will need to re-key the vault, which will invalidate all current keys, and will cost one hundred galleons. This includes the price of a new key, while ll additional keys will cost another fifty galleons each. These expenses will be pulled from the main vault as you emptied the trust vault yesterday. Is that acceptable?"

"Very much so, Account Manager Gripclaw. While the vault is being re-keyed, I would like to make the trip we had planned to my family's main vault." Gripclaw nodded, and made out an order for the handling of the trust vault, then called two runners; one to carry the orders to the locksmiths, another to take Harry to his vault.

After riding a minecart, Harry was escorted to the door of the main Potter vault, which opened when the top of the Potter signet ring was fitted into an indentation in the center of the door. While incredibly impressive with the mountains of gold and gems and the displays full of jewelry, the real treasures were the trunk with secret compartments and the books on rare or advanced magics. The trunk looked the same as a standard school trunk, but had inlaid feather light and space expansion runes. The trunk could only be opened by those keyed in, similar in manner to the moneybag he had bought the day before from Gripclaw. After transferring his purchases from his backpack to his new trunk he added a few books from the shelves that Tom had picked. Several were simply class textbooks for the upper years of Hogwarts, useful for a head start, but several others were on blood magic. These were because of the revelations about his core that Tom showed to Harry the previous night.

flashback

Harry opened his eyes to find himself in his mindscape again. He had just lain down in his rented room when he drifted off to sleep. The fact that he was here again didn't surprise him. What did was how it was no longer pitch black and dark. The background had taken on a grey appearance and there was a strong but muted light coming from his core. In the new light, he could see that the two cores were different colors, Tom's a black with green tint and his green with black tint.

'Must be some kind of bleed-over,' he mused, looking at the pipe-like connection between the cores. Tom had explained that his current magical core was simply a shell formed by his soul, able to hold magic but not renew it. He relied on a small amount of Harry's magic to power it. Turning, he saw Tom standing next to him, and could finally get a good view of his face. He had black hair and black eyes with faint red rings around them, and a refined, aristocratic looking face. While his hair was the same length as Harry's it laid flat and was much neater than Harry's bird's nest.

While Harry was busy taking in Tom's appearance, Tom was staring intently at the faint red pattern on the surface of Harry's core. It was like a giant cross-hash pattern had been drawn on it. It looked almost like a net made of ropes, trailing down below his core to a flat red disk that seemed to just be floating there.

Harry eventually followed Tom's eyes and found himself looking at the same thing. "So what exactly is that?" He asked.

"That's the core binding I found this morning. I'd guess that the red lines all over your core are blood bindings, but I can't figure out what the disc is," Tom said.

"Looks kinda like a mini black hole, but red," Harry noted while looking at the disc. At this, Tom's brows shot up and his eyes widened.

"You're absolutely right Harry, from the appearance that's almost exactly what we're looking at. The bindings would contain your core and drain your magic into the siphon below your core, but where could it be going?" he wondered aloud. "Not only are vampiric blood bindings, which are what this would appear to be, highly illegal, who would have been powerful enough and near enough to place them on you?"

"Well, that Dumbledore guy seems like the most likely candidate. Between sticking me with the Dursleys and being my guardian, he'd have more than enough opportunity. But what's this about vampiric blood bindings?" Harry asked with one eyebrow raised. Those things sounded pretty nasty.

"Blood magic is frowned upon but common enough. The difference with normal blood magic is that it is used to 'key' someone into something, while vampiric blood bindings were commonly used as punishment for criminals ages ago. They literally suck the magic out of your core, hence the vampiric part. It's a miracle that you're even alive with what you went through and that your magic kept you going, even more so that it was constantly being drained while doing so. You must have both a massive recovery rate and a substantial magical reserve. I dare say you'll be nigh unstoppable when you're fully trained. Of course, we have to get these bindings off first."

Harry's mind was still hanging around the part about draining his core. "So what exactly is my core being drained into?"

"That's simple enough. It's either draining into the person who cast the bindings, which would be dangerous and could kill them if the bindings ever failed, or they're powering a set of blood wards. Blood wards are different from normal defensive wards as their power isn't set at a specific level, rather they are based upon the person they are tied to. The longer you spend on average in the wards, the stronger they are, but the more they drain your magic. I wouldn't be surprised if we found a set of those wards around your former residence."

"So what do we do about them?" Harry asked. He really didn't want to continue letting someone drain his power, especially considering that he just got access to it.

"To get them removed we'll need to first find out just what type of ward they are, and how they are set up. The same result can be reached by several different methods, and we'll need to figure out exactly what we're undoing. So, research and then finding a curse-breaker to remove it. It won't be any time soon though, so don't worry about it for now."

end flashback

Having packed up their selections and placed the new and now shrunken trunk into his pocket, Harry was led back out the way he entered. One short minecart ride later, and they were back led back to Gripclaw's office. Harry was provided a new key, and they then headed out of the bank. Tom convinced Harry to buy an owl, claiming that while snakes were wonderful familiars, owls were more useful, so Harry headed into Eeylop's Owl Emporium. Having mentioned the python incident at the zoo to Tom, the two were still debating whether Harry should get a snake too, but he could get one later, if at all.

After looking over the majority of the store, a pure white owl caught Harry's eyes. Her eyes practically screamed intelligence, and she cocked her head to said side as if to say 'Well, what are you waiting for? Let me out of this cage already'. A short few minutes later, an owl perch, food and water dishes, and several packages of owl treats had been added to the trunks inventory, and Harry left the store with the newly christened Hedwig on his shoulder. The name had been up for debate, but after throwing about several options Tom had picked Hedwig from his memories of a book he had read ages ago. She had instantly perked up at the name, and so it was decided.

The day's activities seemed to have taken longer than they had though, because the sun was setting by the time they returned to The Leaky Cauldron. A short dinner was had, with Hedwig having part of Harry's sandwich. After returning to their rented room, the three companions were just about to head off to sleep when a small brown owl arrived, carrying a letter addressed to Harry.

#To: Harry James Potter
#Room 5, The Leaky Cauldron
#Diagon Alley, London

#From: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry