Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does.

Chapter 4 Alley Meetings

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter walked down the streets of Diagon Alley, admiring how quickly magic could rebuild the damage from the "Final Battle against Voldemort", as they called it.

Of course, Harry though to himself as he noticed the extensive damage to one shop, with its windows completely shattered and shelves knocked down, a whole lot of that damage, more than he had thought. It really wouldn't do to reveal myself right now.

Dobby tailed along behind him, levitating his trunk. Some looked at him strangely, but it was probably the fact that he brought his house-elf with him. As much as he loved Chris' cottage, it was probably better as a safe house. Besides, he thought humorously, I think the Boy-who-Lived should live in a castle, he had brief images of himself brooding a castle, shooting down owls that came close, and scaring muggles.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He heard snatches of conversation, mostly about him. He picked up a discarded Daily Prophet from a week ago, and looked at it. The Headline read:

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Boy Who Lived defeats He-who-is-dead!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Back to being the bloody Boy-who-Lived again, huh? He thought bitterly, remembering the slander and abuse the Prophet had put him through.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Another article, however, caught his eye. It read:

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter to be awarded Order of Merlin First Class and 1 Million Galleons by Ministry of Magic, courtesy of Minister Fudge.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Minister Fudge states, "Somehow in my heart I always knew that Harry Potter could never do those things!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry threw it away, not needing to read it to know Fudge would continue making things up about him. He would be dealt with too, Harry would make sure a conniving, greedy politician was never allowed to stay in office, not on his watch. After all, what good's fame if you can't use it to help deal with a few people?He wondered with a smirk on his face.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 1 Million Galleons huh. Fudge really broke the bank, Harry thought. It's still not enough. I'd trade all of the galleons for my photo album, for my parents, for Sirius…

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He shook his head, attempting to clear his head before his depressing angst got to him. He looked up, and walked away. So he walked into Gringotts, the wizarding bank, and proceeded to go straight to the nearest goblin. "Excuse me, I'd like to open Harry Potter's vault?" He asked the goblin.

The goblin looked up, but thankfully didn't give him away or look in awe. He merely nodded, and responded, "Of course Mr. Potter. Do you have your key?"

Harry pulled out his shining key from his pocket, having removed it from his trunk a few moments ago. "Good Mr. Potter. But there is a new development with your account here at Gringotts."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked quietly.

"Well, there is your trust vault, and the Black Family vault and estates given to you by Mr. Sirius Black. The Ministry confiscated these upon your arrest, but Remus Lupin managed to keep anyone from taking them. They are to be returned to you, as you are now free. However, since now you are over the age of seventeen, and the legal age of wizardry, the Potter Vault and Estates, frozen by your Father's will and kept untouched, is now yours. The Ministry has already added one million Galleons to your trust vault."

Harry's eyes widened. He knew the extent of the Black Family vault share he had, three million Galleons alone. He also recalled he owned a small summer home in Florida, to 'retire', as Sirius' will put it. It was where Sirius had stayed.

"How much is in the Potter Family Vault?" He managed to rasp out.

"Ten million Galleons." The goblin said matter-of-factly, as if he was saying the sun was bright.

If possible, Harry's eyes widened even more. He didn't really want money, but with the extensive amount he had, he would probably never need a job. Which is good, because I don't think me or society is ready for me to rejoin them. They'd probably try to give me a medal. I'd probably try to blow them up, Harry thought, only half-joking.

"And what are the Potter estates?" Harry questioned, and one part of his mind knew one of the estates. It just hadn't occurred to the other parts yet.

"A Summer Home in Paris, The Marauder's Castle, and Godric's Hollow." The goblin replied.

Harry started at the last two names. "Godric's Hollow?" He croaked. He knew that that was where his parents had died and where he had become the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Indeed sir. It was left destroyed, as a tribute to you." The goblin responded.

"Thanks. What about the Marauder's castle?" Harry asked, shaking his head free from the flashing memories of a high-pitched laugh and a flash of green light.

The goblin, instead of replying, turned and called a goblin over. The goblin was carrying a note. "This was inside the Potter Family vault. It is a message."

Harry looked at the untidy scrawl similar to his own, and his heart almost stopped at the names: Lily and James Potter. It read:

Dear Harry/Prongs Jr.,

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ If you're reading this, then your mother and I have died. I'm so sorry we couldn't see you grow up. But you have turned the legal age of seventeen, and are now old enough to inherit the family vault. The Potters, in case you never knew, are one of the oldest, richest, and influential families in the Wizarding world. Our trust fund insured you could last the whole Hogwarts years. Unless you spent all of it on a broom or something, upon which the goblins were instructed to move the same amount back into your vault.

ྭIn case your wondering how I know you're a wizard, well… a bit before I wrote this you levitated some food towards yourself, much to your mother's dismay. (Here Harry had a laugh) Well, I've left you our Summer Home in Paris (Your mother dearly loved this), Godric's Hollow, I'm sure you know of our home, and the Marauder's castle.

I dearly hope you know of the legendary Marauders, if not Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail, or myself personally, then by word. Someone should have told you. The 4 of us bought this castle as a joint venture, as sort of the Marauder's home base. Lily was a bit skeptic to the name, but she loved the place. We were dearly sorry when we could not return because of Voldemort. Please Harry, I hope you didn't shake when hearing the name. Be strong. (Here Harry smiled. He killed Voldemort. There was no fear in him towards Voldemort.) The castle is our home base, full of pranking items and is heavily warded. In case of our deaths this was sealed, and only you and your legal guardian shall know the password. It is Marauder's Forever. Son, know that your Mother and I love you dearly.

Here Lily wrote in neater, loopy writing.) I love you son. And James, How dare you write our will without telling me! (Harry had another laugh)

With all the love in our hearts,

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Lily and James Potter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's eyes were watering by the end, and carefully, he folded it and put it in his pocket. The Marauder's castle huh. Seems like a good place to live. I definitely can't live in Godric's Hollow. Too many memories, and all bad ones,Harry thought, pulling free from the recurring nightmare of green light and the final words of his parents.

"Thank you. Is there another way to spend money without having to carry it around?" Harry asked, when he suddenly had visions of him levitating a gigantic bag of money to pay for all the purchases he would make today.

"Of course. Give them your vault number, and just ask them to charge it. This card here will keep track of the balance in your vault and prove it is yours, and the money will be taken out by a Gringotts goblin and delivered to their vault. It is incredibly secure. The card has charms to make sure only the owner of the vault can carry it." The goblin explained.

Harry nodded, and after paying twenty five Galleons for the card, he walked out calling Dobby to follow him. He walked into Madam Malkins and got fitted for his robes quite quickly, once she saw who he was. He begged her to remain quiet, and she quickly fitted him. He paid for about ten black day robes, an equal number of cloaks, and a dress robe for good measure. After all, Harry knew, if I'm to do as my dad says and not live single, I'm going to need it.

He thanked her, and charged it to his account, but Madam Malkin cut the price for him, so it was quite minimal. He asked Dobby to deliver it to his residence. He nodded, and disapparated with a crack. Now that Dobby wasn't tailing him, he could go elsewhere. It wasn't that he didn't like Dobby, but people stared at him, and he really didn't want to get mobbed.

Harry walked down the streets confidently, knowing he had huge amounts of money in his vaults, he decided to splurge. As he walked, he spotted the Apothecary, thinking Well, I may need to brew myself some potions sometime, might as well stock up.

. So he walked into the Apothecary, and walked up to the man behind the counter. "I'd like a small supply of everything." Harry said calmly.

The man looked at him, studying him for a moment until he noticed the eyes and scar. "Harry Potter," he breathed.

Harry nodded, and asked how much. "uhh… five hundred Galleons sir." He responded.

Harry charged it again, and walked out, asking it to be delivered to his residence. He neared Flourish and Blotts when he saw another shop.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Magical Trunks and other items, it read. He walked in, he really liked the idea of one of those multi-compartment trunks. He walked right up to the clerk and asked, "Do you have any of the Multiple Compartment trunks?"

The clerk nodded, and said, "We have several different kinds. There are the regular three compartment trunks for a regular wizard. Those are about two hundred and fifty Galleons. A five-compartment trunk is better suited for a traveling wizard. That's five hundred Galleons. The seven-compartment, our largest trunk, is good for a wizard who needs a lot of space and travels extensively, such as an Auror. That one is seven hundred and fifty Galleons."

Harry thought about what he needed for a moment, and decided, Ah hell. Why not? Might as well use those millions of galleons. He bought the seven-compartment one and charged it again to his account.

The Clerk explained how to use it. "You can make each compartment into whatever you want."

So Harry spent another half an hour setting up each compartment. The first one was a living quarters, with a bed and couch, even a fireplace. The clerk said it could possibly be added into the Floo Network, but Harry said he'd do that later. The next one was a dining room, complete with a kitchen. It was a cozy, smallish kitchen. The third compartment was a dueling arena. A place where he could train.ྭ The fourth was a swimming pool (Harry decided to have some fun.) The fifth was a potions lab. The sixth compartment was an armory/conference room of sorts. It could be filled with weapons and dark detectors, and had a large table for conferences. (Harry thought it would be better to be prepared.) The last one was a storage room, where Harry could keep potion ingredients and other items of use.

Harry thanked the clerk, and walked out with his new trunk. He went into Flourish and Blotts to get a few books. Chances were the Marauder's castle didn't have a library, or, if it did, it wasn't up-to-date or full of things other than pranking books. He asked if he could see a catalogue of their selections, and the deskman nodded.

Harry selected several books about the Dark Arts and how to counter them, potions, transfiguration, and advanced spell work and construction. He asked them to be delivered to the castle, again. As he walked out, trunk in hand, he ran into someone.

The person he ran into was knocked into the ground, and a familiar, feminine voice was heard, "Watch it mister!"

As Harry prepared to respond, his breath had caught in his throat. It was Ginny. He didn't have a good look at her in the battle, but now he did. She was beautiful, even more so than in sixth year. Her hair was long and shiny, like shimmering fire. Her brown eyes however, were hooded and depressed.ྭ "Sorry." He said, disguising his voice.

He bent to help her pick up her books, and their hands touched. Ginny looked up at that moment when Harry's eyes could be seen from behind the hood. She looked up and saw the same green eyes she fell in love with over seven years ago. They stared at each other for a moment, each lost in the other's gaze.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry?" She whispered, not daring to hope.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly, hearing his name sprang him into action. His head snapped up and he spun around grabbing his trunk, saying quickly, "No, you must be mistaken."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Somehow, no matter how angry he was at her, he couldn't hold his anger and hate when he looked at her chocolate brown eyes. It was too difficult. She made him weak! He hated feeling like that. Harry stormed away, his cloak billowing in his wake, but Ginny would not let him leave her again.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "HARRY!" She called out, running after him. People began looking around, seeing a redheaded young woman chasing after a rapidly retreating figure. Some began realizing it might be Harry Potter.

ྭAfter a few seconds of calling out his name he stumbled a bit, and she grabbed onto his cloak and said sobbing, "Harry, I know it's you! Please, talk to me! Look at me!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ His anger, which had been growing from his run-ins with Dumbledore and Hermione reached their boiling point. He spun around and yelled in her face,ྭ "TALK TO YOU! WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED TO TALK DURING THE TRIAL! YOU COULDN'T EVEN LOOK AT ME! DAMNIT GINNY! I LOVED YOU! APPARENTLY HOWEVER, THAT MEANS SHIT TO YOU!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny's eyes fell towards the floor, and she was unable to look at him. "I'm sorry." She whispered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah well, sorry isn't good enough luv." He said quietly, and apparated away, towards his new home, trying to escape the thoughts that plagued him.