I do not own Harry Potter. Any parts of this that resemble the books are probably from it.

This chapter is only a short interlude between years one and two.

June 25th 1992 – Hogwarts Express

Harry was currently panicking. He was going back to London on the express with nowhere to go. He had no home, only a few galleons and couldn't do magic until he returned to the castle! 'Calm down Harry,' he thought, 'there has got to be a solution.'

He could stay with Tom for a while, but he would need a reason as to why he wasn't with his family. Ah! He could say they were abroad and would not be back for a week, which would do for an excuse, even if it was a bit flimsy. That would buy him some time to find somewhere to stay, it couldn't be anything expensive. Maybe he could find a tent in the junk shop, if wizards even used tents.

First though he would need to find a way to get to the Leaky Cauldron. He had read up on something called the Floo in a book on magical transportation, which used fireplaces and green Floo powder to travel between them. He wasn't sure if Platform 9 ¾ had fireplaces. If things were desperate however he could try to recreate the teleporting he had done as a child, apparating he believed it was called.

June 28th 1992

"Oh bugger."

Harry was currentlyin the junk shop, stuck under a pile of books. He had been trying to retrieve one called A Map of Magical Britain 1989, the most recent edition he had been able to find, when instead of the one book coming down, the whole pile did. He sighed and idly started levitating them back to place on the high shelves.

Tom had let him stay for a week, if he kept up the amount of work he had done the year before and had asked him to stay on at slightly reduced hours once he was back with his 'family'. He had yet to find a place to stay that wouldn't arouse suspicion as this was proving more difficult than he thought. He had even resorted to looking for a wizarding tent but having found out about all the charms on them realised they would be hideously expensive. He had found one in the junkshop but the charms were failing and had a habit of losing the space expansion charm on the inside, then throwing everything inside, out. Maybe he could find a muggle one.

He finished levitating the books and froze. He had used magic outside of school. He was going to be thrown out! Then he would have to live on the streets and scavenge for food and...

He calmed down. 'How would they know I've used magic?' he thought, 'if I don't tell them and there's no one around to dob me in, how will they know?' An evil smile came to his face, 'as long as I don't get caught I should be fine practising, I'll just have to find somewhere out of the way...'

'Well, it doesn't look like I'll find what I'm looking for here, so I'll have to find a muggle camping store.' He started to go towards the cauldron then stopped. He wouldn't be able to spend his galleons in the muggle world, they only took pounds. He turned and headed back down the alley to Gringotts, hopefully he would be able to exchange money at the bank.

It didn't take long to reach the bank and after stopping again to admire the marble exterior, he went inside and joined a queue. He had been in here before at Toms advice and been told that the main potter vault had was empty, aside from a few of his ancestors personal belongings, and that he wouldn't be able to access it until he was seventeen. He couldn't even look at the ledger to see where the money had gone! His trust vault had been set up to be a percentage of whatever had been in the main vault but since the main vault was empty so was his trust vault. If he put any money into his trust vault 95% of it would go to the main vault. He had decided to hold onto his things after hearing that.

"Next!"

Hearing the dour faced goblin call out Harry hurried over to him, knowing goblins hated having their time wasted.

"I'd like to exchange three galleons into muggle money please."

"Here's two hundred and forty pounds, Gringotts has taken a ten Sickle fee," he grunted, "Next!"

Harry moved away gaping. Ten Sickles! That was a rip off! He was glad he hadn't exchanged all his money, the greedy blighters. However he hadn't realised just how much more expensive wizarding things were than magical, he must have made a few hundred pounds from Tom and Hagrid. He moved towards the exit and the Cauldron, wondering where he could find a muggle camping store...

Dumbledore's office

Dumbledore was thinking. Mostly about young Neville and the prophecy but also about Harry. He couldn't get out of his mind how much he had failed the boy. He had seen him through the year and seen his threadbare clothes, lack of magic and the poor way everyone treated him.

During the war against Voldemort the Order had need money to counter that of his many wealthy supporters and the Potters had been one of the biggest contributors. James had convinced him that he would be quickly able to recoup the losses and he would have had they survived, James' Aurora work and Lily's job as a healer both paid well and it would not have taken them long to be able to live comfortably again. Unfortunately with Voldemorts fall many families were buying their way out of Azkaban and it was only through using the last of the Potter money they managed to bring so many to trial. He would hate to think what would have happened if Bellatrix Lestrange had avoided Azkaban.

It wasn't even as if he could give Harry his parents' belongings or those of Remus and Sirius. The Potters were all destroyed during the Battle of Potter Cottage, the last fight of the war and one that only he seemed to remember. Sirius's were seized by the Black family and he doubted anyone had touched them or even been in his home for a decade. Remus's had been taken by the ministry on one of their stupid anti-werewolf laws, his house sold off and his belongings destroyed.

He could give Harry his father's cloak of course, but it was one of the Hallows and did Neville need it more...

June 29th 1992

'Crack'

Harry staggered and lent against the wall. He had forgotten how uncomfortable apparating was, but 'Oh yeah! I still got it.' He grinned to himself and peered out of the alley he was in.' Ah, there it is,' he thought before moving across the road and into the largest camping store in the UK, the sign proudly proclaiming that what had brought him here.

He walked inside as looked around for the section that sold tents. He found it and wandered over, wondering what else he would need. 'A sleeping bag, definitely and something to cook on, anything else?' he frowned as he saw the tents the store sold. Most of them were too big or too expensive, he needed one small enough to fit in his trunk when he wasn't using it but large enough to get said trunk and him inside it when it was up. Eventually he found what he was after, a bit more expensive than he would have liked but it would do. He moved over to the sleeping equipment and wondered what else he would need...

August 4th 1992 – Harry's tent

Harry yawned as he woke. He cast a quick tempus and rolled over in his sleeping bag knowing he had hours until work began. He couldn't believe how much he missed Hogwarts, or was it just the beds? No he missed all of... most of it, he hadn't been able to practise much of his magic, not having the right materials to hand but he had done all of his homework. He crawled out of his sleeping bag, wondering how quickly the second month of the holidays would go.

The first had been good and Tom had stopped questioning him about his home life. He had made plenty more money and had spent most of it down the junk shop on more books, Lockharts were bloody expensive, although he had set a fair bit aside for a rainy day.

He zipped up his tent and apparated to Diagon Alley. He wasn't worried about anyone stealing anything given that it was set up in a forest in a remote part of the country and that a group of forest trolls had agreed to watch it for him. It was amazing how many subtle nuances a troll could make a grunt hold.

A few hours later

Harry was cleaning tables in preparation for the lunch time rush when he noticed a crowd of redheads bustle in, Longbottom and his parents, were they? Following behind. He watched them all sit down and start discussing their purchases. He wondered how the Weasleys would have paid for all of Lockhart's books, he knew they weren't many in the junk shop.

"Ginny," he heard Longbottoms father ask, "may I have a look at the books in your cauldron?"

The young girl nodded, looking confused as Frank started pulling all her things out.

"What are you doing Frank?" Weasleys father asked before looking bemused at the black leather book Frank had pulled out and started flicking through.

"Did you buy this for her Arthur?"

"No, did you Molly? Then who did? What is it anyway"

"Didn't you say you met Lucius in the bookshop? It's a dark artefact, I could feel the huge amount of magic pouring off it, and that seems like the kind of thing he would want to get rid of, although why he would give it to your youngest I don't know." He said as he pulled out a bag from his pocket.

"Thank god you noticed it then, I would hate to get Ginny involved with those kinds of things. Any way to get Lucius to acknowledge it," Arthur responded, a dark look on his face.

"No, we have no proof after all," Longbottoms mother interrupted, "I think he's got away with this one."

Harry turned his attention away from the adults and noticed Longbottom and Weasley doing the same.

"You hear that Ron, Malfoy's going to get away with it."

"Not if I have anything to do with it, that's my sister that could have been hurt by that thing. I think that Fred and George would be more than happy to help us return the favour to Malfoy," he replied, the smirk making its way across his face.

"Yeah, let's go tell them..."

Harry sighed, there was no way this wasn't going to worse.

September 1st 1992 – Kings Cross station

Harry was wandering around the station heading towards Platform 9 ¾ when he noticed Longbottom, Weasley, Finnegan and Thomas running across the car park. He overhead a few snatches of conversation but ignored them, they were probably trying to get Malfoy into trouble.

"...can fly and it's got an invisibility booster build..."

"...house elf told me the school would be in danger..."

"...think he stopped us getting on the platform..."

He wondered about the last one as he strolled through the barrier, nothing seemed wrong with it to him. He pulled his trunk onto the train and wished he had mastered the Featherweight charm, his trunk had gotten quite heavy with the shrunken tent and sleeping bag in there. He walked down the corridor trying to find an empty compartment and found that the one next to the Weasley girl and another blonde haired girl with protruding eyes had no one in it. He settled down with a book on Mermish, hoping to learn a little more of the Language so he could speak to the tribe that lived in the deeps of the black lake, and wondered how Longbottom and his cronies would get to Hogwarts.