Over the weeks, Harry's studies progressed. His notes became organised – even cross-referenced between related spells and across disciplines! Harry felt proud.

He learned what he did wrong in the Charms theoretical, and then moved on through Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, to focus in on Astronomy.

Not that he expected Astronomy to help him defeat Voldemort, but it was all a part of his plan. A somewhat revised and improved plan than the one he'd come up with a year ago, too.

His early scribbles on the wall of this cupboard, the ones in green crayon, done when he first came back in time, had been erased.

Harry still woke up in cold sweats when he thought about it: travelling back in time, changing things to create a specific future and hiding his plans lest all his efforts go to waste…

What would have happened if someone had stumbled into his cupboard while he was at school, and taken the scribblings seriously?

Dumbledore, Harry had first thought, out of habit. Dumbledore somehow always knew what was going on, had mysterious ways of seeing things.

Then he had recalled with dawning horror that Mad-Eye Moody had once spent weeks monitoring Harry's neighbourhood, using his magical eye to peer, paranoid, into every dark corner in case danger lurked.

Harry had clenched his fists so tight at the time that the quill he was holding had snapped, and then realised – heart plummeting – that Moody had taken him home from King's Cross once. He had been in the house the night Harry turned seventeen. Harry could still vividly recall the guilty, unclean feeling he had felt when he realised Moody had looked into the cupboard. He had wondered if there was still evidence that little Harry had once lived there; if Moody had known who he really was when he was in the Dursley's house, when he wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived at Hogwarts.

The shadow of Aunt Petunia's 'boy' had still lingered in the corners of that cupboard; his secret, shameful past enduring, threatening his newly forged self.

Harry had been so afraid that Moody had somehow seen it, seen him; would realise that his wizard-ness, his Gryffindor-ness was just a new façade, and yet now Harry realised that without his sudden, lucky realisation, Moody could have seen his secret notes of his past future too.

Wizards were paranoid about time-travellers, Hermione had repeatedly told him during third year. Whole people could disappear, futures changed, decisions altered. The penalties were harsh.

Harry suddenly wondered what the paranoid Moody might do if he learned that Harry had –

He had cut off the thought. No need to give himself nightmares. Best just fix it. Fix it good.

He'd magicked the marks away in scrambled haste, and then promptly panicked that someone might be able to see the traces of magical energy lingering, and somehow bring them back.

Was that even a thing? He'd have to research energy traces in his free time. He'd add it to the list.

"Wandwork in a muggle house," Harry had imagined Moody muttering in his gravelly growl. "The only wizard a half-trained, under-age lad? Sounds like Dark Wizards to me."

Completely unnerved, it had only taken Harry minutes to Apparate out to Diagon Alley and buy himself a large bottle of Mrs Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover. He had used up half the bottle scrubbing the wall before his heartbeat had slowed and he figured his wand-magic had been hidden underneath the potion's glimmer.

Then he was left with one unusually clean and sparkling cupboard end, and had had to clean the others too, so that his time-travelling cover-up had not stood out.

It was the walls of his third compartment, his most secret and private one, that were now covered in pieces of parchment. Lists of events, of causal relations, of potential actions and their possible consequences now lined the back of the space. Harry's signature messy scrawls covered the parchment: black, blue, green, and red inks meant different things; lines connected his thoughts. If Hermione had made these plans, Harry told himself, they might have been tidier, but he was bizarrely proud of his efforts.

And now they were well hidden in a space you couldn't see unless you were inside it, that no one else knew existed. Except the saleswizard, of course. Who did not know that he had ever sold anything to Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry had never told anyone that his trunk was unusually magical.

It wasn't uncommon, of course. Hermione had bought herself a fancy one, a Ravenclaw-styled one, he knew, presumably when she first explored the Alley and knew she wanted to bring books with her to school.

Neville's was supposed to organise his things for him, although Harry had never seen that being particularly effective.

Even Ron, Ron the youngest son with the hand-me-down everything, had brought into Gryffindor Tower a trunk charmed by Mr Weasley himself. It was larger on the inside than it should have been, Harry knew, although he had never noticed in his first life.

Mr Weasley's magic continued to impress him the more he noticed it.

The point of it was that Harry having a magical trunk would not stand out as suspicious, although his was more expensive than most.

But having a luggage you could live in would stand out, Harry had figured. It would imply he needed to, for example. As if, say, he didn't have a proper bedroom in his own house. As if his family didn't want him in their space.

So he'd kept it secret.

And even then Harry had somehow turned his secrets into layers. The nature of the trunk was secret, so no one knew about his home life. But somehow, he had still subconsciously divided his compartments up into categories: two that people could see, if necessary. His bedroom. His study.

Unusual. Uncommon. But yet never being unsafe.

The third compartment, the one that he kept as a storeroom, unorganised and chaotic, the one with the Vanishing Cabinets, was where he somehow just happened to use to hide his secrets.

Now he knew why.

This year the diary would come to Hogwarts, Harry knew. He couldn't give it to Dumbledore this time – that was one of the changes he would make. He wanted Dumbledore to live, after all. Plus…well. He'd made plans, Harry smiled. So he would keep the diary, secret and safe, in the third secret compartment of his school trunk instead.

Emerging from his thoughts, Harry patted the mokeskin pouch that hung constantly around his neck. No one but him could retrieve the keys from the magical pouch. No one but him would ever know that he had a private Room of Hidden Things.

He turned to focus back on his studies. He had ideas. Secrets. No one to rely on but himself, so he had to do better.

He'd be prepared this time.

His self-imposed confinement was unavoidably interrupted the day before Harry's twelfth birthday.

He emerged from his trunk mid-afternoon with a satisfied groan. He thought he might have grown a bit, over the past few weeks. The cupboard he stood in certainly seemed to have shrunk, compared to what he remembered.

Then Harry recalled that he had not lived in the cupboard after his first Hogwarts letter, before, and felt a surge of confusion.

Life: it seemed to be going better for him this time, didn't it?

He took a short moment to take down the muggle repelling charms and returned the cupboard to the condition is was when he had arrived. Once he left there would be no evidence that he lived in the house at all.

With a satisfied nod and a silent good luck to the few brave spiders that had colonised the corners of the cupboard, Harry locked the luggage lid securely, and pulled it upright as he leaned over to open the door.

A small creak sounded as the door swung open, and he stuffed his compartment keys safely back into his mokeskin pouch. Slipping it back under his shirt, he patted it lightly, just to confirm it was secure.

If Ron had been here, original Ron, he would have teased Harry terribly about turning into a second Mad-Eye. Personally, Harry was beginning to think Moody may have had a few points.

He'd almost lived out the Second Wizarding War, hadn't he? Moody would have been fine if he had kept to his principles and not become a decoy for Harry.

Harry shook the bleak mood off with a shake of his head, and forced himself back into the moment. He'd made this trip back in time partly for Moody, obviously. He needed to up his game; stay focused.

Then, Harry stepped out of his cupboard to hold what he hoped would be a civil conversation with his aunt.

He approached her in the kitchen, as she finished up her regular scrub down of the flooring: the house would be spotless again by the time Dudley and Vernon returned in the evening. Her yellow rubber gloves were squeaking slightly with her movements, and her blue summer dress was bright and cheerful, yet Harry couldn't help but feel the whole house was faded and drab. He wondered briefly if his eyes were going funny from too much study.

Harry watched her silently for a moment, scrubbing a stubborn patch of invisible dirt under the kitchen table, before clearing his throat awkwardly. Perhaps Dudley had trekked mud in over lunch? Her body jerked in surprise at his quiet cough but she did not look up.

"Aunt Petunia," Harry tried, as she tensed at his presence.

She paused for a long moment, not yet setting her sponge down.

"...What?" She huffed, apparently realising that Harry was not going away.

"Do you have a minute?"

After a further frustrated pause, Petunia sat back and finally met his eyes. The little lines around her eyes and mouth deepened as she scowled, but she consented to direct her attention reluctantly on him.

Harry was not surprised that she did not encourage the communication, and so he simply inserted himself into the conversation with bluntness.

"It's been more than a full month," he began. "And I've slept under your roof every night. Thank you for hosting me."

The woman looked at him speculatively.

"You're leaving then."

"Yes," responded Harry. "I've fulfilled the conditions for this year. I've tried to stay out of your way. Are you happy with how it's turned out?"

He was certainly happy to leave.

While he was thinking this, a complicated play of emotions flickered over his aunt's face for a moment.

"Vernon's been pleased," she allowed finally. "Dudley hasn't mentioned you once. Did you stay in the cupboard the whole time?"

Harry smiled.

He couldn't say that it had been the kind of holiday he longed for, but there was a sense of accomplishment now that he had reviewed his first-year studies completely. While his compartments weren't large, they were a good sight better than the cupboard space proper. Petunia still had no idea that he'd been breakfasting in, and walking through, Diagon Alley daily.

Harry had no idea what Petunia thought he had been eating.

Aside from the chores he still rushed through each morning so the neighbours could see him and Petunia's garden looked neat, the family were barely aware of his existence. It was quite possible that Vernon actually hadn't seen him at all.

He knew for a fact that Dudley hadn't.

Just how they all liked it.

So while he hadn't had the experiences and adventures he'd quite had planned, Harry nevertheless felt like he had made good use of his time. He was proud of himself, and all the fun times in the world suddenly looked less appealing in comparison.

Harry felt his smile grow.

If Petunia thought that Harry's grin was a bit too twisted and self-satisfied for her taste, she probably assumed that it was due to his managing to avoid pulling his proper weight in the household under their usual militant supervision. Why, he hadn't cleaned anything inside the house once!

She glanced around the kitchen, confirming Harry's guess, before returning her attention to the scruffy boy before her.

"I think," Harry began delicately, "Dudley forgot I exist. I made sure a couple of the neighbours saw me, I've been seen to be healthy and around the house," he spared a thought for the eccentric Mrs Figg, "so I think I've covered everything, and I'll do the same again next year. I just wanted to let you know I was leaving."

Aunt Petunia may or may not have muttered something that sounded like 'good riddance'.

Harry looked at his aunt, kneeling there in the kitchen of her sterile, muggle home and wondered if she was happy. She must have some spark of joy and passion inside her, being related to Lily. He cocked his head slightly to look at her, and readjusted his grip on his luggage.

"Aunt Petunia." After an awkward little pause, Harry ventured to continue the conversation, half wondering at his own sudden impulse. "I was wondering, do you…Is Dudley around today?"

She was apparently deeply displeased by Harry attempting actual conversation, and tossed the little sponge back into her bucket, huffing again as she did so.

"What do you want?"

"Oh," Harry scratched his head and leaned to settle his school luggage firmly on the floor, providing him with a little more comfort.

"It's just, we've never really spoken about, um, family. I was wondering if you had anything of…y'know, things I might have inherited lying around somewhere?"

"Your parents left you with nothing." She sniffed.

Harry stuttered. "Oh, I – uh, I was wondering…Old school stuff? Photographs, maybe?"

"Anything worthwhile that your parents owned was wasted by them, or destroyed," Petunia snapped.

"Sorry," Harry shuffled where he stood. "It's not just my mum – sorry! – but even, maybe you could tell me about her parents? My…Gran? Nan? What would I have called my grandparents?"

Petunia eyes him in suspicion and her eyebrows lowered in a disbelieving frown.

"What is it you are after?"

"Honestly, just to know them," Harry muttered. "We've never really spoken about it, and I, well, I obviously don't have too much family."

Petunia snorted.

"I'm curious."

With a huff, Petunia pulled herself to stand upright, apparently fed up with her unwanted nephew looking down on her.

She put her hands on her hips and spoke sternly, staring strangely over Harry's shoulder to look out the window behind him. She wouldn't meet Harry's gaze. "I don't know what it is that has given you the, the courage, the audacity to skive off your chores all summer and then demand favours of me like this. My mother and father were perfectly respectable people and deserve to rest in peace, not pulled up like some kind of payment you think I owe you."

"I don't, really," Harry protested, his own forehead creasing. "I just thought –"

"You didn't, clearly."

Harry pushed on. "Look, I just want to know them a bit. I don't know what you've told Dudley – "

"The time and affection that I give Dudley has nothing to do with – "

" – but I don't know anything about them! What were their names? What were they like? Did they look like mum? Did they look like me?"

Petunia spoke heavily. "My parents were perfectly normal, respectable people with local friends and proper jobs. They had very little in common with you at all."

"Did," Harry asked, "did they ever meet me?"

Wearily, Petunia sighed, her gaze drifting quickly over Harry's own. "Why this sudden interest?"

"I've always wondered," Harry protested. "You've never mentioned anything to me. I've got a right to know, don't I?"

Petunia huffed again, and then turned to begin picking up her bucket of water, reaching in to pick up her sponge and squeeze out the water. Clearly, she wanted the conversation to be over.

"Look," Harry protested. "I've stayed out of your way all summer, and I've done chores – they still count! – done chores while making sure that Uncle Vernon and Dudley still didn't see me. Can't you just…tell me their names, and a few short stories, and maybe show me some photo albums?"

"Now we hear it," Petunia scoffed. "First it will be photo albums, and then it will be little trinkets. The inheritance my parents left me is going straight to Dudley; anything you got through your parents will be with their things."

"But you said – "

"Your parents' lack of responsibility is none of my business."

"But Aunt Pet–"

She stopped. "We do not owe you anything. You have come into our home and our lives. You have taken our money, our time, away from our son. You have replaced our safety with, with connections to freakish people, and dangerous nonsense. How can you possibly think that a few hours gardening during the holidays put us in your debt?"

Harry gaped, his mouth working soundlessly as tens of arguments forced their way up his throat and got stuck there.

"I, I, I thought…but you…I've been trying…"

Aunt Petunia scoffed. "You're only staying here until you go away and live in that world now, aren't you? You belong with them, not us."

Harry stood in silence, clenching his fists, and then carefully, slowly, he unclenched his hands and pressed them against the sides of his thighs.

"Off you go."

The woman sniffed and sneered and waved him away with one rubber-gloved hand, and Harry took it as his dismissal.

Picking up his luggage, Harry turned and walked out the front door with firm footsteps, and directly entered into the taxi waiting to take him and his trunk to Charing Cross Road.

There was no need to look back.