Chapter 4, re-edited...damn, my hands are hurting from all this re-editing...
Chapter IV- An Ollivander Wand and an Old Woman
Harry had often heard of magical beasts with more than one head, and was beginning to see the uses. Because there was so many things going on at the moment. All kinds of vendors and shops, all kinds of witches and wizards, and the oddest things going around in broad daylight.
Harry grinned to himself, imagining the general Muggle reaction if they discovered this was happening under their very noses.
He looked sadly upon the Quidditch store, remembering his childhood hopes. He looked over at the bookshop, wondering if they ever did start stocking Muggle titles. He marvelled at the gleaming bank, remembering the rollercoaster-like cart.
Finally, he came across the wand shop. Tom had been correct; not only was there a break-in, but apparently a lot of vandalism. The windows were still smashed- Harry supposed Mr Ollivander had been more concerned with the well-being of his wands rather then something as trivial as windows. As Harry approached the door, he saw the handle had several scrapes in the gold paint, and the door was scarred with deep scratches, as if some beast had tried to claw a way in.
When he opened the door, a bell tinkled for a moment, before falling, landing on Harry's head and bouncing onto the ground.
Rubbing where the bell had hit his head, Harry went deeper into the shop, hearing a voice from somewhere in the back.
"Not another one!" said a stressed voice. "So much work to do, so much work..."
A man appeared behind the counter. "Ah yes, what problem do you have with your wand, Mr Pot-...Mr Potter! The lost child has returned after eleven long years!" The man grinned. "Happy days indeed! Yes, of course you need your wand?"
Harry raised an eyebrow at the man's eccentricity. "...No. I heard you were looking for a temporary assistant- what are you doing?"
For some reason, Mr Ollivander had come up to him and started measuring his arms and tugging at his fingers.
"Don't get many this age...curious..." he muttered. "Maybe it would- wait, assistant? You're not here to obtain your wand?" The man sounded scandalised.
"No. I was told you needed some help. If you have someone already, I'll just go-"
"No! There's no need for that, lost child, here there is much work to be done, much work..."
"One more thing...sir. I'm not lost," said Harry, following Mr Ollivander between aisles, carefully stepping around or over the boxes and wands that littered the dusty floor.
Ollivander continued walking. "But you were, young lost Potter."
"I was. Not anymore."
"We shall see, my boy...Ah, this is where I was," said Ollivander, coming to a halt.
Harry glanced around at his surroundings, not seeing any difference in this mess...to the other messes.
"This is the system." Harry suddenly found the bottom of a wand box being shoved in his face. "These codes," Ollivander pointed to some gray-ish numbers and letters handwritten on the box, "go with these wands." He held up a long roll of parchment in Harry's face, which listed all of the codes, along with the particulars of each corresponding wand. "Don't worry about the wand cores, that's my job. Just make piles of all wands of the same type of wood and all boxes with a code that indicates the type of wood. For example, HO means Holly, EB means Ebony, and WL means willow. Understand, yes? Good, good."
Ollivander walked to another area and began working on sorting the wands by core. Harry stared after him for a moment, before he shook his head at the man's crazy mood swings and odd speech patterns.
As Harry began working, he wondered if he should have asked how much he was being paid.
About six hours later, one very bored teenager was surrounded by piles of wands sorted by wood type, and stacks of boxes that corresponded. He groaned and stood up, wincing slightly when his back cracked.
He stretched, before he approached his temporary manager.
"Mr Ollivander?"
"Mm-hm?"
"It's nine," said Harry, waving his hand at a clock that hung on the wall, in surprisingly good condition compared to the rest of the shop.
"How about that."
"Yeah...so, we never made a contract, so I was figured I could leave now- by the way, how much are you paying me- and uh, what time do you want me to come back tomorrow?"
"Lovely, lovely." Mr Ollivander seemed to be fascinated with a wand and was examining it from all angles.
Harry's eyes narrowed at being ignored. Oh, he would not be ignored any more.
"Excuse me!" he growled from behind clenched teeth. "I'm leaving! Money. Now!"
"A wonderful wand this," remarked Mr Ollivander. "Pity it has no owner..." Ollivander removed a polishing rag from a pocket and began cleaning the wand.
In most cases, Harry would have calmed himself down, but as it happened, he was hungry, tired, bored, penniless, and being ignored.
Harry stalked furiously over to the shopkeeper. "Damn it man!" He pulled the stupid wand out of the man's hands to get his attention. "I have been picking up your stupid wands for six hours straight-!"
"Hahahah! I knew it! I knew it! That wand was waiting for you, lost child! I thought I could get rid of that five years ago, but not so, not so! It was for you, my boy! The lost Potter has claimed that wand! How very curious..." The man broke off, and stopped prancing around the room in his excitement.
Harry looked at the wand, and saw a stream of gold sparks falling from its tip. He suddenly found a bag of gold coins in his hand.
"Four Galleons an hour, deduct seven for a wand. Seventeen Galleons! Have a nice day- night, lost child! I won't require your assistance anymore, may we meet again."
Harry then found himself outside the door, his backpack still slung over his shoulder, a wand in one hand, and a bag of galleons in the other.
"What the bleeding hell just happened?!" He wondered out loud.
"Oh, 'tis you again, sonny boy."
Harry turned to his right to see that old madwoman with the cane from earlier.
"Yeh got problems in there boy?" She poked his head with her cane. "Are yeh jus' gonna stand there through the night?" She prodded him again. "Well, what use are yeh?" She poked his stomach- who then remembered he hadn't eaten for at least six hours.
Irritated by the woman's poking (and poking into someone else's business), Harry caught the cane as she made to poke him again. He pulled it from her grasp, and answered: "Plenty use." He walked off with the cane still held tightly in his hand, the wand and the money now in the other.
"Eh? 'ey! Now you get back 'ere you young' whippersnapper! You give that back or you'll be sorry next month, 'specially if you're in meh class!"
"...What?" said Harry, turning around. "What class?"
"My class? Don'cha wanna learn how tah defend yerself from those scumbags?!"
"...What drugs have the folk at the nursing home been giving you today?" responded Harry, before walking away, still confused. What class was this? Why would he be taking some class- to defend himself? The idea made him laugh- and he would have done, if it would not have made him look out of his mind, laughing at nothing. So, what scumbags were these anyway?
Harry continued on his way until he found a deep alcove between two shops. Not large enough to be an alley, but large enough to not be disturbed.
Harry cleared away the gravel and placed his belongings down. He pulled his staff away, and magically extended it from its shrunken state, and he whipped it round in a circle, putting up a basic alarm ward to alert him if anyone came near- or if anyone tried to remove the ward.
He wasn't too bothered about muggers or robbers, knowing he was capable of taking care of anyone who did decide to bother him, so Harry opted not to put up any more wards. He finally lay down on the hard ground, using his backpack as a pillow. He had slept rough many a time, and wasn't about to use what little money he had on a room at an inn somewhere. He took off his bandana and put it in a pocket, and covered his eyes with his arms, just as the old lady came hobbling over.
"I'm not gonna ben' down and pick that up boy, giv' it 'ere!"
Harry tiredly slid his arm up his forehead to look at the pestering woman, and as a side-effect, pulled his hair back. "Take the stupid thi-" He cut himself off as he saw the lady's expression. Shakily, she took her cane from his extended arm, her eyes still glued to his forehead, or more accurately, the lightning-bolt like scar.
"Oh my...oh my oh my..." She hobbled away, and a few moments later, Harry heard the crack of Disapparation.
Harry lowered his arm again, and muttered to himself about crazy old woman.
Momentarily, the war-drums sounded in his ears again.
No peace for a warrior, even an inexperienced one.
Maybe sleeping rough wasn't such a good idea after all. Harry was sure he felt gravel down his trousers.
Harry moved his arm from his eyes slightly, looking at the sun. From its position, it was about eight, maybe nine.
"Shush! I think he's wakin'!" a familiar voice whispered.
Harry discreetly slid his arm over his eyes as he pretended to be asleep. So it was his ward that had caused him to wake...he really should put an alarm on it next time, just to see the panicked faces on whoever approached.
"No, just stirring. So, are you sure it's him?" said a deep voice.
Somewhere, Harry knew that voice. Distantly, like the cry of a long forgotten dream...
"Do ya know any other teenagers wanderin' 'round 'ere with black 'air, green eyes an' a lightnin' bolt scar? Eh? Do ya?"
Damnit, that annoying old lady...and even worse, she had recognised him.
"Okay! I was just asking! Do you have any idea of how much trouble we'd get in for abducting some random kid of the streets?!"
"Didn' think you were one fer the rules..."
"Shush!" hissed the man. "So, uh...what do we do now?"
"We? We? I jus' found 'im an' reported where 'e was! You do somethin'! Didn' ya go to Dumbledore las' night!?"
"Obviously!"
"Well?"
"I'm trying to think! Okay, how about we uh, wake him up and explain things?"
Harry then a heard a sound that sounded suspiciously like an old lady's cane hitting a middle-aged man's head.
"Are ye daft? He's bin gone for eleven years! He's the one that should be explaining! Where's he bin all this time? Why couldn' anyone find him? Why's 'e back now? That sort of thing, Potter!"
Potter...Potter...Potter...That word rang like a gong in his head. But that would mean.
He heard the man- James Potter, he was sure of it- approach. Before he could even touch Harry, the teen had jumped to his feet, and had grabbed his shrunken staff from his pack, and extended it to full length, pointing it straight at James' face, a swirling disc of red magic hovering at the tip, ready to be fired.
"What. The. Hell. Do. You. Want."
Harry's face was tightened aggressively, but was otherwise emotionless. His body was ready to move a moment's notice, and unbeknownst to him, his eyes almost looked like they were glowing.
And in his ears, the war-drums were loud and quicker in their tempo, beating harder with his adrenaline.
James' eyes widened in shock. He raised his arms in the recognised symbol of submission, but kept his fists closed.
Looking back, Harry knew he should have seen it coming, but his conflicting emotions about his father blinded him. The warrior in him told him to fight to escape, but the child in him wanted recognition from his family.
Harry ordered James to open his hands. James slowly opened his right hand.
"The other one," hissed Harry, pointing the staff at the left hand.
Without warning, James opened his hand and flung an object at the ground with a quick flick of his wrist.
Harry made the mistake of concentrating on James, as James had dropped a small silver ball. The ball hit the ground, and rolled and bumped against Harry's shoe.
And in that second, Harry felt a tug behind his navel and disappeared into thin air.
"Damnit!"
Harry landed on his knees, and straightened. His eyes still were looking at the floor, seeing scarlet carpet- familiar, scarlet carpet.
The teen swallowed nervously, as a sense of dread began to fill him. A sense of dread...and a sense of loneliness. He looked ahead, scanning his surroundings.
In all this time, the Potter household had barely changed.
Suddenly, there was a loud 'crack' upstairs, and a frantic male voice shouted:
"Where is he?!"
Harry smirked to himself. Although the Portkey caught him by surprise, he had still tried to fight the magic while being transported. It obviously hadn't worked too well, but he had landed downstairs instead of whatever room- or cage- they had prepared for him in the house. Maybe now he could escape...
Harry attempted to Disapparate, but the sensation was rather like running into a wall. The sixteen-year old swayed unsteadily and toppled onto his back. Clearly, he was no longer keyed into the wards, as James had Apparated in just fine.
Just as he was about to try and get up, for the more old-fashioned "leg it", James came thundering down the stairs.
"Who's there?!"
Harry sighed melodramatically. He lazily waved with his arm, before allowing the tired limb to flop back onto the floor.
Looked like things would get interesting...
And there we have it. Chapter 4, re-written.