After an eternal moment of being squeezed through an infinitely thin straw, I returned to reality with the sound of my apparition pop echoing back to me in the moonlit twilight. I wasn't exactly sure where I was, other than outside at night, but I wasn't in agonizing pain so I'd probably done something right. A quick going-over seemed to indicate that I hadn't splinched myself this time, and all extremities were present and accounted for.

Immediate worries handled, I realized I was standing on a hill in the middle of a park, kids' swings and see-saws spread out across a play area at the base of the hill. This wasn't exactly where I meant to show up, and the weird way the moonlight hit the hill at a slightly different angle than the rest of the lawn nearby made me figure it was another rath. Downside, I didn't know where I was. Upside, I didn't feel exhausted after hopefully apparating all the way across Britain.

I could see city lights twinkling in all directions, and some on taller buildings in one direction that I hoped was London skyline. Not seeing anyone immediately nearby, I walked down the hill and out of the park into what turned out to be a residential street, row houses with no yards close to either side. It looked vaguely familiar, and was well-lit enough under streetlights, but I couldn't get my bearings.

I'd walked a few blocks in the cold before I hit a corner grocery that was open late, and my very first step was buying a whole case of Coke and some old fashioned non-wizarding snacks. While I was checking out, I asked the guy, "Is there a big post office around here?"

"Yeah, mate, about half a mile down that way," the cashier pointed exactly the direction I'd already walked most of that distance from. "Hang a right just past the train tracks past the park. But it's closed. Be closed this late even t'weren't Sunday."

"Thanks, just checking for tomorrow. Held packages."

"Good luck," he chucked. "Right mess it is, tryin' t' get your Christmas packages in this close to the day. Least the weather's not too bad."

"That's something, at least," I nodded. "Merry Christmas."

"Happy Christmas to you, too, mate. Nice walking stick, by the way."

"Thanks," I told him, hoping it didn't draw too much attention. The rest of my gear was concealable for the most part, but my skills at extension charms weren't quite up to hiding my staff. They did make me a nice little bag of holding, though. I snagged a can of Coke from the case and slid the rest and my snacks into my belt pouch as soon as I was out of sight. The bag was essential for transporting the gear I was picking up, but it was damned useful for carrying ten pounds of cola without getting tired.

After months of having to get by on water, tea, and sometimes trying to stomach pumpkin juice, a fresh can of cola was basically bliss. If I'd had more muggle money, and more space in my bag, I'd have bought out the whole stock. I wondered if I could safely run duplication spells on soft drinks, or whether it was enough like food that Gamp's laws would stop me.

Enjoying my drink as I retraced my steps down the block, I passed where I'd appeared at the park, walked over a bridge with train tracks below, and shortly hung a right around the graveyard that had been my planned destination. Fair enough. I wondered what would have happened if there hadn't been a rath so close by: would I have been relocated way out of the way?

It probably was for the best that I'd missed, since I noticed some kids hanging out in the graveyard, a boom box going and what sounded like loud pre-Christmas debauchery going on.

Having figured out where I was, it wasn't much more of a hike toward the big mail distribution center I'd found a few months back out exploring with Elaine. If the guy at the desk had been telling me the truth, this was the main post office hub for the whole west of London, including where we'd been staying. Big warehouses loomed out of the night, lit by streetlights to guide shipping trucks to the terminals. A few passed by as I walked, but I was hoping that being late evening on a Sunday would counter being during the Christmas rush. This would have been easier if I could have gotten here any other Sunday in the past few months.

I had pulled the hood of my transfigured jacket low just in case there were cameras and gave a quiet magical shove to get the turnstile gate to let me in even though it was after closing. There were basically no cars in the lot, which was promising, and I went around the building rather than trying the front door. It was actually reasonably warm in the city, especially compared to north Scotland, but a gust of wind as I walked around the long, unadorned building chilled me. Or maybe it was the feeling like I was being followed.

Anxious to get indoors, I tapped the handle of the side door with the oversized skeleton key I'd found in Filch's pile of contraband and whispered, "Alohomora." The unlocking charm easily let me inside, and I found myself in a somewhat dingy hallway, the smell of oil, paper, and cigarettes heavy in the air. It was shockingly dark inside, compared to the well-lit parking lot outside. Not wanting to waste magic, I fumbled around and eventually found some switches that turned on lights in the hallway. Carts of half-sorted packages and letters were tucked against the wall, and windows looked out onto sorting floors.

Fortunately, like any good bureaucracy, signs were at every intersection giving a vague idea of what was in each direction, and it didn't take me too long to make it to the dead letter room. I hadn't left Justin's burning house as empty handed as I'd been in Azkaban. Knowing full well that aurors might show up for the blaze, I'd managed to save out a package, put my essentials into it, address it unintelligibly and with insufficient postage, and squeeze it into a postal pickup bin. Assuming the aurors had looked for anything I'd hidden between the house and where they caught me, they'd missed the completely muggle method of hiding it.

I knew they missed it, because if they'd found the skull not even Dumbledore would have been able to get me out of prison.

Looking out over the large room lit only with light from the door and some moonlight leaking in from skylights, I visualized the box, waved my staff, and chanted, "Accio package." I was thrilled when I felt the magic catch and heard a couple other boxes clatter to the floor as mine raced off a shelf to fly into my hands. All stamped up with the process of making its way here, I was glad that it hadn't gotten disposed of. If I'd had to wait until summer to get it, it probably would have been.

Popping open the package, I found it still contained what I expected: a few of Justin's rare books and scrolls I'd snagged for my godmother, a small bag of the keepsakes I had left from my parents, including my mother's amulet, and, wrapped in a few sweatshirts that still smelled faintly of burning house, a bleached-white human skull. I happily pulled the silver amulet over my head, shoved the books, keepsakes, and shirts in my pouch, and said, "Hey, Bob." When the skull in my hands twitched but otherwise did nothing, I said, a bit louder, "Wake up, lazybones."

Points of orange like candle flames appeared in the skull's eye sockets and it stretched its jawbone as if yawning, before saying, "Oh, hey, Harry. How long has it been?"

"Nearly five months, sorry," I told him. "They arrested me, then made me go to Hogwarts. First time I could get away."

He made a sniffing noise. Since he didn't exactly have a sense of smell, I figured that was his cue for using his magic senses on me. "Something weird is going on with your aura."

"My godmother gave me a ritual to put off the Trace temporarily. Had to use it to get down here. One of the jerk aurors is trying to prove I'm a killer," I explained.

"Hmm. It's about used up. Be careful." Bob's flames flickered, as if looking around. "Hmm, post office in the middle of the night, huh? Think you could summon me some reading material?" Bob wasn't really a skull, it was just a housing for a spirit of intellect. For some reason, of all the other things in the universe he could fixate on, his biggest obsession was profoundly weird. "Shouldn't be a big deal for your ritual. You've got juice in the tank for it."

Grumbling, but knowing this was the best way to make him useful for a while, I visualized the kind of thing I was looking for and said, "Accio porn."

Several magazines tastefully wrapped in nondescript brown paper flew out of the dead letter office. I shucked off the wrappers and showed him. "That's the stuff," chuckled the skull, regarding the gentleman's magazines. "So you're in school. We going back there?"

"Wasn't planning on it," I admitted. "Britain seems to have it out for me. Was planning on trying to catch a boat to sneak into France, then see if I can get the American embassy there to ship me back home."

"Shame to pass up the resources of a truly old-school school. Looks like you've been able to pick up new accoutrements. I'd love to take a crack at their library. Supposed to be pretty intense," Bob wheedled, then admitted, "But you're the boss, boss."

"And don't you forget it," I grinned, glad to have Bob back. An encyclopedic reservoir of magical knowledge, Justin had gotten him somewhere and he'd been my teacher for most theory. More than that, he'd been my friend and the only one of the people in the house I'd ultimately been able to trust. "Going to be safe in an undetectable extension?"

"No worries," he said, so I slid him and his magazines into my bag, which was still just a football-sized leather pouch despite now having a case of soda, a human skull, and other miscellaneous odds-and-ends inside.

I turned off lights as I retreated through the post office, listened at the door to make sure it was still safe, and made sure the door locked behind me as I exited onto the parking lot. It was getting on toward midnight by this point, but my afternoon nap and the can of Coke were making me feel like I might make it to the English Channel before I felt like sleeping.

My brain fully engaged with planning how I'd make it fifty miles to the coast with minimal magic, I wasn't as cautious exiting the fence around the place as I'd been leaving the building proper. So I was surprised by a half dozen young men lurking in the bushes nearby, the boombox hoisted on one's shoulder but now turned off indicating that they'd been the kids having the party in the graveyard.

"Oy, guv," shouted a pasty but burly boy who was nearly as tall as me, "Let's have the keys to get into the lockup, yeah?"